Is social justice really a serious problem in the country?

November 28, 2023

Social justice is an old concept that has become a hot topic lately.

The Britannica website offers this description: “Social justice, in contemporary politics, social science, and political philosophy, the fair treatment and equitable status of all individuals and social groups within a state or society. The term also is used to refer to social, political, and economic institutions, laws, or policies that collectively afford such fairness and equity and is commonly applied to movements that seek fairness, equity, inclusion, self-determination, or other goals for currently or historically oppressed, exploited, or marginalized populations.”

Human Rights Careers online offers the following: “The connection between social justice and human rights has strengthened over the years to the point where many use ‘social justice’ and ‘human rights’ interchangeably.”

And, from Wikipedia: “Social justice is justice in relation to a fair balance in the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society where individuals' rights are recognized and protected.”

While the idea of social justice in America has involved everyone having an equal opportunity to make their own choices about their future, there is a faction that believes that certain groups have been discriminated against, and therefore deserve what the Wikipedia description says: equal distribution of things, not equal opportunity to pursue things.

Yes, discrimination does exist. But is it really a major problem?

A new book analyzes the “social injustice” that many people claim to be rampant in America. Titled “Social Justice Fallacies,” the author is Dr. Thomas Sowell, a Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, and a brilliant thinker. 

Comments on the cover of the book say that “The quest for social justice is a powerful crusade of our time, with an appeal to many different people, for many different reasons.”

“’Social Justice Fallacies’ reveals how many things that are thought to be true simply cannot stand up to documented facts, which are often the opposite of what is widely believed.”

“History shows that the social justice agenda has often led in the opposite direction, sometimes with catastrophic consequences.”

Those errors were the result of human fallibility, due to the fervor of the crusader mindset, which often is so strong in its followers that they make serious mistakes in their efforts to correct a problem, including ignoring contrary evidence.

In the book Sowell details the problems with this error-ridden theory.

Addressing the idea that everyone should get the same opportunities, or the same amounts of all things, he notes that people with different backgrounds do not necessarily even have a desire for the same things, and certainly do not want to do whatever may be necessary to achieve them. This may perhaps be the case even if those things are given to them.

An example he cites is that some social justice warriors blame sexual discrimination for the fact that women are statistically under-represented among Silicon Valley employees. But a step further into the data shows that the work done in these companies requires engineering skills, and women receive less than 30 percent of the needed engineering degrees. Why? Because they do not choose to study engineering. 

People are not all the same. There are natural and lifestyle differences that play a part in a person’s capabilities and desires. Geographic areas encourage different lifestyles and behavior. Living in Florida is not like living in Alaska, or Iowa, or West Virginia. Growing up in farm country is different than growing up in a big city.

A person’s family and the family’s experiences most often play a major part in how children develop, and how they pursue life.

Sowell wrote that “children raised where there is only one parent present have been found in a number of studies to have a higher incidence of many social problems.” Boys without fathers have a higher incidence of things like truancy and murder. Girls raised by one parent have a higher incidence of teenage pregnancy. 

So, the question of why Billy made the football team and Joe didn’t; why Mary was the valedictorian and Freda wasn’t; or why Jane got the promotion to sales manager over Frank, probably was not the result of discrimination. There are many factors that may be involved in most outcomes other than race, ethnicity or gender.

In seeking persons to fill advanced medical research positions, Sowell posits, do we want equal numbers from all population groups, and hope for the best? Or will we make sure that we get those from whatever backgrounds who have demonstrated a mastery of medical science?

He wrote, “But neither society nor government comprehends or controls all the many and highly varied circumstances — including a large element of luck — that can influence the fate of individual classes or nations.”

And, “Circumstances beyond our control are major factors in economic and other inequalities. Trying to understand causalities is not necessarily the same as looking for someone to blame.”

Is the alleged “white supremacy” real and the result of racial discrimination? Is it because white people make up 59 percent of the population? Or, is it a false flag promoted for some political purpose?

Sowell shows us that social justice is another politically correct concept that causes more problems than it solves.

Is being “bossy” really a serious societal problem in America?

A new crisis threatens the nation. Some women are upset at having been called “bossy” when they were young. This term is so offensive to them that they want the word banned. Yes, that’s right, they want to banish the word “bossy” from the lexicon, never again to be used in any context, even to describe a male, as so many did to Mitt Romney during the 2012 presidential campaign.

 “Bossy” is now the “B-word,” but must not be confused with another B-word, which arguably is a more serious insult to women.

In junior high, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg recounts, a teacher stopped her best friend and told her: "Nobody likes a bossy girl. You should find a new friend who will be a better influence on you."

"This is a very negative experience for girls,” she said. “If you look at my childhood, if you look at the childhood of most of the leaders we talked to, they lived through being told they were bossy," Sandberg said. "And it has such a strongly female, and such a strongly negative connotation, that we thought the best way to raise awareness was to say, 'This isn't a word we should use.’”

Okay, so young girls were often referred to as “bossy” because they told others what to do. But isn’t the term “bossy” really just the reaction to a particular type of behavior?

If someone is “bossy,” doesn’t that imply that the person thinks they know better than everyone else how things should be done? Maybe they’re right, or maybe they’re wrong, but their behavior sends that message.

I have worked for and with women who were good leaders, but were not “bossy,” and I’ve worked along side both men and women who weren’t in a leadership position, but were plenty “bossy.” Being “bossy” is gender-neutral, and is not a requirement for being a good leader. Having been called “bossy” does not seem to have hurt Ms. Sandberg’s career.

So that begs the question: why would anyone be offended at having the behavior they willingly exhibit being accurately identified? Wouldn’t the offended person’s proper response be to modify their behavior so as to no longer impress others as being bossy? Or, just grin and bear it?

Ms. Sandberg and Girl Scouts CEO Anna Maria Chavez expressed the idea in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that using “bossy” to describe girls is at the center of the problem of unequal treatment of girls and boys, noting that girls who lead are more often described as "bossy" and "overly ambitious" while boys who lead are described as "strong" and "determined."

Perhaps men and women are perceived differently and receive different treatment because men and women are inherently different creatures. We know this because Time Magazine told us so after it had an epiphany back in 1992, and thought the discovery warranted a cover story. “Why Are Men and Women Different? It isn’t just upbringing. New studies show they are born that way,” the cover announced.

Since the women’s movement in the 60s there has been a strong effort for equality between men and women, particularly in the workplace.

There certainly is no reason women cannot be doctors, lawyers, accountants, CEOs, politicians, financial advisers, etc. And there is no reason that if women want to perform those traditionally male jobs, like construction, carpentry, welding, truck driving, mining, or be police officers and firefighters, etc., they certainly can.

But while women may want to have careers, just as men do, nature has placed restrictions on them. Nature has deemed that women are the only gender that can bear children and nurture them in the earliest part of their lives, and the mother’s role is a critical and important duty in our world.

Men cannot be mothers; they are not built for the job, either physically or emotionally. Which is not to say men cannot play a stronger role in parenting and taking care of the home. But they cannot be mothers, and mothers will always have a different role than fathers.

And for that reason, mothers and fathers can never be totally equal, either in the workplace, or in the home.

In Ms. Sandberg’s book Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, which she called "sort of a feminist manifesto," she encouraged women to "lean in" to their careers, yield to their sense of ambition and don’t shrink when they incur challenges in their work-life balance.

Ms. Sandberg’s efforts seem designed to show women as victims who are discriminated against in the workplace.

But when you look at the studies, they show that women frequently choose lower paying careers than men, tend to prefer a better lifestyle to working the longer hours required by many better paying jobs, and they take off blocks of time from their jobs, often due to childbearing, more frequently than men, which affects moving up.

Some of us try to equalize things that are inherently unequal, due to situations that those on the short end actually have helped to create.