Author Topic: Economic Gender Gaps: In the U.S. and Internationally  (Read 21345 times)

Offline Brown Eyes

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Re: Economic Gender Gaps: In the U.S. and Internationally
« Reply #10 on: November 19, 2008, 11:06:41 pm »

Thanks Crayons!  Wow, this thread has certainly become a lively little place.

I'd just like to echo that I think it's important to address these issues either using direct examples of personal experience or by citing and considering actual research on the subjects at hand in this thread (moving from economic discrepencies between men and women to the issue of education, discipline, etc.).

Speaking in stereotypes and extremely broad generalizations seems to mostly serve the goal of trying to prop-up, bolster or validate stereotypes.  Which in my opinion, isn't helpful to either gender.

the world was asleep to our latent fuss - bowie

Offline HerrKaiser

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Re: Economic Gender Gaps: In the U.S. and Internationally
« Reply #11 on: November 20, 2008, 02:17:57 am »
the series of responses by crayons above simply continue the wishful thinking that some real "truth" can emerge from tales of personal situations that do not reflect reality. Sorry if some reality checks appear "rude" but, for example, it was quite convenient for women to bemoan lack of team sport participation, and as a direct result create title 9, one of the most unfair and discriminating legislations ever past, and claim now that women WERE active if not equal participants?

some specific clarifications:

1) an LPN is a licensed practical nurse that in most states requires only a year of training and in practice is only allowed to give prescription drugs (which anyone can do at home) and basic patient comfort care and vitals (temp, bp, etc). A plumber goes through mulitple years of training and journeymanship and as a licensed plumber, he/she is fully responsible for the work they perform. So, once again, the erroneous attempt to equalize careers with different earnings structures lead you to a false conclusion.

2) you know perfectly well the C level execs are not part of the legitimate discussion on fair wages for workers. Using these exaggerated examples further deflates your points; even though I admit similar propaganda has been quite successful for feminists' ability to gain attention over the years.

3) wage disparity can very likely be discovered somewhere. But, your original premise that the 77 cents on every dollar a man earns is what women overall get paid is not true. Wishing to believe that somewhere is a woman who is paid less than an exact equal male counterpart is one's choice. Somewhere a man is underpaid as well. But such situations are not common and have legal recourse.

4) not kidding about teachers' stress levels vs other careers. Actually, are you kidding? While disciplinary issues are vastly more problematic than former times, other than teachers and those who love them feel they have the most cush jobs ever invented. In fact, I know plenty of teachers who know that to be true too...that's why they got into it.



Offline serious crayons

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Re: Economic Gender Gaps: In the U.S. and Internationally
« Reply #12 on: November 20, 2008, 02:39:07 am »
the series of responses by crayons above simply continue the wishful thinking that some real "truth" can emerge from tales of personal situations that do not reflect reality. Sorry if some reality checks appear "rude" but, for example, it was quite convenient for women to bemoan lack of team sport participation, and as a direct result create title 9, one of the most unfair and discriminating legislations ever past, and claim now that women WERE active if not equal participants?

My point was that I at least offered some form of evidence, from my own experience. I'm a parent of two sons, I have worked in co-ed workplaces. Where is your evidence? I don't see anything from firsthand experience or research or anything else for your wild statements such as "girls do not excel at teamsmanship." That's a "reality check"?

Get this. I believe there are indeed differences between men and women. But those differences are exceedingly hard to determine, even for genetic behavioralists and other scientists, due to the intertwining of environment and biology. Making reckless blanket generalizations about what you perceive about male and female behavior based on casual observation -- of what? years of watching sitcoms? -- is irresponsible and, yep, rude.





some specific clarifications:

1) an LPN is a licensed practical nurse that in most states requires only a year of training and in practice is only allowed to give prescription drugs (which anyone can do at home) and basic patient comfort care and vitals (temp, bp, etc). A plumber goes through mulitple years of training and journeymanship and as a licensed plumber, he/she is fully responsible for the work they perform. So, once again, the erroneous attempt to equalize careers with different earnings structures lead you to a false conclusion.

2) you know perfectly well the C level execs are not part of the legitimate discussion on fair wages for workers. Using these exaggerated examples further deflates your points; even though I admit similar propaganda has been quite successful for feminists' ability to gain attention over the years.

3) wage disparity can very likely be discovered somewhere. But, your original premise that the 77 cents on every dollar a man earns is what women overall get paid is not true. Wishing to believe that somewhere is a woman who is paid less than an exact equal male counterpart is one's choice. Somewhere a man is underpaid as well. But such situations are not common and have legal recourse.

4) not kidding about teachers' stress levels vs other careers. Actually, are you kidding? While disciplinary issues are vastly more problematic than former times, other than teachers and those who love them feel they have the most cush jobs ever invented. In fact, I know plenty of teachers who know that to be true too...that's why they got into it.



[/quote]

Offline HerrKaiser

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Re: Economic Gender Gaps: In the U.S. and Internationally
« Reply #13 on: November 20, 2008, 11:17:23 am »
My point was that I at least offered some form of evidence, from my own experience. I'm a parent of two sons, I have worked in co-ed workplaces. Where is your evidence? I don't see anything from firsthand experience or research or anything else for your wild statements such as "girls do not excel at teamsmanship." That's a "reality check"?

Get this. I believe there are indeed differences between men and women. But those differences are exceedingly hard to determine, even for genetic behavioralists and other scientists, due to the intertwining of environment and biology. Making reckless blanket generalizations about what you perceive about male and female behavior based on casual observation -- of what? years of watching sitcoms? -- is irresponsible and, yep, rude.


I guess your work and personal experiences are valid projections to the entire culture? No, sorry. And if you think so, why would you suggest that mine or anyone else's are not worthy of the same application across the board?

The "quote" you attributed to me was purposefully written by you to mislead...another means by which you have historically attempted to win debates here. My statement was in context to a post by brokeplex and is based on studies showing the same result, that the reason girls team sports had not and remain less involved than boys' team sports because "....girls do not seem to excel at teamnanship". big difference than what you attempted to slip in...and thats rude.  ;) Not to mention the crack about sitcoms. Maybe some self inspection about rudeness is in order.


Offline serious crayons

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Re: Economic Gender Gaps: In the U.S. and Internationally
« Reply #14 on: November 20, 2008, 01:35:29 pm »
I guess your work and personal experiences are valid projections to the entire culture? No, sorry. And if you think so, why would you suggest that mine or anyone else's are not worthy of the same application across the board?

You just answered your own question. Yours are not applicable across the board if they do not match my experiences. The fact that my experiences are different is prima facie evidence that yours or others do NOT apply to every case.

Now, I didn't at any point say that your generalizations are NEVER right. I said that, according to my own firsthand observations, they are not ALWAYS right. For instance, it's quite possible that JudgeHolden's anecdotes about the military accurately support his position, in that context. And it's quite possible that women in newsrooms behave differently than women in the military so that my observations are also accurate. In the absence of other data, we have no way of knowing whether JudgeHolden's experiences are more common than mine, or vice versa.

Do you understand the distinction? When you make generalizations about how men and women behave, implying that those generalizations apply "across the board," then anyone who can point out an exception is effectively disproving your argument.

Quote
The "quote" you attributed to me was purposefully written by you to mislead...another means by which you have historically attempted to win debates here. My statement was in context to a post by brokeplex and is based on studies showing the same result, that the reason girls team sports had not and remain less involved than boys' team sports because "....girls do not seem to excel at teamnanship". big difference than what you attempted to slip in...and thats rude.  ;) Not to mention the crack about sitcoms. Maybe some self inspection about rudeness is in order.

OK, I'll try to put this as politely as possible.

There is all kinds of research out there on behavioral differences between men and women, some of which even attempt to separate the effects of biology vs. socialization. When you make vast generalizations about the sexes, such as

girls do not seem to excel at teammanship.

it is advisable to include some form of evidence. That is, you can say anything you want -- you can say women have X-ray vision and men can see into the future -- but if you want to be taken seriously it's necessary to support your statements with evidence.

Now, anecdotal evidence, such as I offered, is not the best kind. Empirical research is better, and the ideal is double-blind studies with control groups, blah blah blah. But my point is that you are offering no evidence whatsoever. And anecdotal evidence beats no evidence every time, especially when the side with the no evidence is attempting to make generalizations that apply "across the board."




Offline serious crayons

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Re: Economic Gender Gaps: In the U.S. and Internationally
« Reply #15 on: November 20, 2008, 02:19:38 pm »
I decided to spend five minutes gathering evidence of one kind of another. Parts of it are contradictory. But it does suggest that blanket statements about women's competitiveness vs. teamwork are oversimplified. The studies suggest that the key question is not whether women are overly competitive with each other, but whether they are not competitive enough with men. The data imply that lack of confidence and a discouraging atmosphere partly accounts for women's low numbers in nontraditional occupations. It's interesting to note that the initial assumption, unlike the assumption of some people on this thread, is that men are MORE competitive than women.

Here's a long scientific paper:

http://www.stanford.edu/~niederle/Gender.pdf

To be honest, I just skimmed most of the process parts and went to the conclusion. I can't copy it from the pdf, but it's toward the end and says approximately what I said above.

And here's a NYT blog post on the subject:

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/06/are-men-really-more-competitive-than-women/

February 6, 2008, 2:24 pm
Are Men Really More Competitive Than Women?
By Melissa Lafsky


The conventional wisdom holds that men and women have different abilities when it comes to competition (a view that’s certainly being challenged in the current Democratic primary). Labels like “lacking the killer instinct,” “peacemaker,” and “avoiding confrontation” are commonly assigned to women in competitive environments, while the supposed male knack for thriving in competition is cited as a reason for the persistent wage gap between the sexes.

But is an enhanced or decreased competitive drive a result of biology, or simply a culturally instilled trait? University of Chicago professors Uri Gneezy and John List and Columbia professor Kenneth Leonard performed a controlled experiment to test this question, and published their results in the new working paper, “Gender Differences in Competition: Evidence From a Matrilineal and a Patriarchal Society.”

Their method consisted of studying two distinct social groups: the Maasai in Tanzania, a “textbook example of a patriarchal society” in which women and children are considered “property,” and the Khasi in India, who are matrilineal, meaning female-dominated through inheritance laws, household authority, and social structures — though still distinct from “matriarchal,” since, as the authors point out, “the sociological literature is almost unanimous in the conclusion that truly matriarchal societies no longer exist.”

Gneezy, List, and Leonard tested the competitive drives of 155 subjects, male and female, by gathering groups of men and women from both tribes, offering them money in exchange for participation in an experiment, separating them into individual rooms, and then giving them tasks like tossing a tennis ball into a bucket 10 times. Each subject was told that he or she was competing against an unnamed rival in another room, and was given a choice of payment options: receive either a) “X per successful shot, regardless of the performance of the participant from the other group with whom they were randomly matched;” or b) “3X per successful shot if they outperformed the other participant.” Their results are summarized as follows:

    Our experimental results reveal interesting differences in competitiveness: in the patriarchal society women are less competitive than men, a result consistent with student data drawn from Western cultures. Yet, this result reverses in the matrilineal society, where we find that women are more competitive than men. Perhaps surprisingly, Khasi women are even slightly more competitive than Maasai men, but this difference is not statistically significant at conventional levels under any of our formal statistical tests.

While plenty of studies have contrasted the competitive drives of men and women, few, if any, have isolated subjects who’ve spent their lives blissfully free of Western (and Eastern, for that matter) cultural biases about gender. Now if we could only test how the Khasi women fare in corporate law firms…


Offline HerrKaiser

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Re: Economic Gender Gaps: In the U.S. and Internationally
« Reply #16 on: November 20, 2008, 03:59:22 pm »

Do you understand the distinction? When you make generalizations about how men and women behave, implying that those generalizations apply "across the board," then anyone who can point out an exception is effectively disproving your argument.


Look, and I'll "try to put this as politely as possible"...

You are making a classic error about scientific study. Simply finding "an exception" to a common trend or overwhelming perponderance of evidence does not "disprove" a thesis. On the contrary, nearly every facet of social/cultural/business/private life in this country is heavily evaluated on generalities, and yes, the word you do not like, stereotypes. The reason that the commercials you watch on TV appeal to a specific "stereotype" of human--gender, likes, dislikes, wants, needs, interests, tastes, etc--is because the demographics do tend to conform to certain generalized behaviors. That is a fact of the matter. Stereotypes are stereotypes because they are largely true.

As such, research, even social research, groups things and people in large subsets of similarities from which general conclusions can be hypothesized and drawn. None of that process is harmful or wrong; it also does not lack in awareness that abberations to the general trends and norms do exist; no one who studies or comments on such things ever suggests that a finding is 100%, even though a statement such as "..the data indicate women (or men) believe...." would be part of the findings in a report. But the exceptions are not, generally, what a 300 million person society creates its programs for or bases its fundamental structures on.

So, making statements (in context) like the one that is giving you heartburn are valid and fair. Just as statements such as 'women seem to be more nurturing...' is a generalization about which both female and male exceptions can be identified, it is directionally a fair statement within the discourse of, for example, family issues, child tutoring, and the like. To lose the opportunity to capitalize on female nurturing because a man objects to the notion, would be a net loss overall. The solution is not to deny the facts and demographic realities, rather be flexible to allow exceptions as they may exist without disrupting the essence of the base indications.





karen1129

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Re: Economic Gender Gaps: In the U.S. and Internationally
« Reply #17 on: November 20, 2008, 04:13:34 pm »
Teacher's are mostly women because there isn't any stress!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OMG...........  this is so wrong !

Several teachers in my family... trust me... there is stress.

That remark about why most teachers are women because there is not stress is just uninformed.
I didn't want to use ignorant.

I also work in sales.  Semiconductor sales.  Been with this company for 30 years now.
I can promise you the guys here make more then me.  Their guarantee is definitely higher then
mine. Same education too.  The only reason I have stayed this long is the great 401K plan.  ;)

And..... are these salesmen competitive...... you better know it.
They are worse then the women.... by far.  I find it entertaining actually.
I never heard so much whining in all my life ! ::)



Offline serious crayons

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Re: Economic Gender Gaps: In the U.S. and Internationally
« Reply #18 on: November 20, 2008, 04:29:02 pm »
You are making a classic error about scientific study. Simply finding "an exception" to a common trend or overwhelming perponderance of evidence does not "disprove" a thesis. On the contrary, nearly every facet of social/cultural/business/private life in this country is heavily evaluated on generalities, and yes, the word you do not like, stereotypes. The reason that the commercials you watch on TV appeal to a specific "stereotype" of human--gender, likes, dislikes, wants, needs, interests, tastes, etc--is because the demographics do tend to conform to certain generalized behaviors. That is a fact of the matter. Stereotypes are stereotypes because they are largely true.

As such, research, even social research, groups things and people in large subsets of similarities from which general conclusions can be hypothesized and drawn. None of that process is harmful or wrong; it also does not lack in awareness that abberations to the general trends and norms do exist; no one who studies or comments on such things ever suggests that a finding is 100%, even though a statement such as "..the data indicate women (or men) believe...." would be part of the findings in a report. But the exceptions are not, generally, what a 300 million person society creates its programs for or bases its fundamental structures on.

Nope, no error. In fact, what you say here pretty much echoes what I said in my post. I agreed that anecdotal evidence is not great. I agree completely that general trends are more important than rare exceptions. I simply said that my anecdote was some form of support for my thesis. And then I went online and found a couple more pieces of evidence.

In contrast, you have criticized my argument while providing no evidence to support your thesis. That's right, you are criticizing me for offering weak evidence, while you offer zero evidence whatsoever. Again, although my anecdotal evidence is not a sufficient basis for solid conclusions, we do know that there are at least three newsrooms in the country where the behavior of women does not match your generalization. They may be the only three workplaces in America where that is true, or they may represent a much larger majority. More research would be required, but it's a start. Meanwhile, in three posts on the subject, you have given no indication that your generalization is based on anything other than your own musings and assumptions.

Quote
So, making statements (in context) like the one that is giving you heartburn are valid and fair.

Heartburn? Hardly. You mean you don't find this fun?  ;D

Quote
Just as statements such as 'women seem to be more nurturing...' is a generalization about which both female and male exceptions can be identified, it is directionally a fair statement within the discourse of, for example, family issues, child tutoring, and the like. To lose the opportunity to capitalize on female nurturing because a man objects to the notion, would be a net loss overall. The solution is not to deny the facts and demographic realities, rather be flexible to allow exceptions as they may exist without disrupting the essence of the base indications.

Absolutely. But as you must know, the empirical process requires that statements like these about gender and behavior be tested and proved, not just thrown around casually because they seem self-evident to the speaker as "facts and demographic realities."


Offline lia

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Re: Economic Gender Gaps: In the U.S. and Internationally
« Reply #19 on: November 20, 2008, 05:55:27 pm »
I read about that study, too, and I was extremely puzzled as to why Germany (which is where I live right now) would be occupying such a comparatively high position on the list. High in general, and specifically also higher than both the UK and the USA. Which runs contrary to everything I observed while living in each of those 3 countries.

For a start, it has to be noted that 2 years ago Germany was still in 5th position, slipping down to 7th in 2007 and falling further behind to no. 11 in 2008. Not something to proud of.

Doing a little research, I found out a little more. For example that Germany's still fairly reasonable ranking is based largely on the number of women in political decision-making positions (the situation is much worse at the basic political level), one of the four factors the end result is based on.

Another factor is health. And apparently the way it's calculated, the gender gap is generally higher in Western developed countries than in developing countries; and the country with the highest score (at least in 2007) is Angola. Nigeria (average healthy life expectancy: female 42, male 41) is also fairly high on the list, and most people wouldn't describe it as a hotbed of equal opportunities. As one of 4 equal indicators it seems questionable, to say the least.

Economic participation: there Germany only occupied rank no. 29 in 2007, and even that seems more than a little dubious to me. Considering that one of the main groups, "professional and technicals workers", encompasses such diverse groups as university professors (where in Germany men are HUGELY overrepresented) and nursing professions, which not only in Germany is dominated by women.  So any indicator based on that particular group is a non starter, as the two groups seem to more or less cancel each other out.

Also, even if Germany actually deserves to occupy a front rank, it is at considerable social cost. It's not for no reason that the German birth rate is one of the lowest in the world. Yes, there are always exceptions, but the vast majority of German women who achieve top positions do not have children, full stop. Even in countries right at the top of that gender gap list, women who want to achieve top positions do - of course - have to work full time. And it's the number of part timers that's mostly responsible for the (undisputed) wage difference that still exists between men and women working in the same jobs, at least in Germany (laws seem to less strict over here). Here, partly for historical reasons, for mothers to work full time is frowned upon in a major way, even today. Even the daycare staff are likely to ask curious questions along the line of: "why did you want children if you are not prepared to look after them?". Note that no other language has a special name for bad mothers, which certainly includes working mothers: "Rabenmutter". Meaning "raven mother", though nobody knows where that expression stems from.

So in Germany, even in the 21st century women, still largely have to choose between motherhood and a career. Or at least feel they have to. Which is why the last of the four indicators used for the Gender Gap Report quoted above, i.e. education, an area where gender equality in Germany isn’t actually that brilliant even on paper, looks even worse if you take into account the particularly high proportion (called "leaking pipe" in the report I saw) of German women who have a first class education but never make full use of it because of family commitments.

Notwithstanding the fact that Angela Merkel (no kids, of course), aka the German Chancellor, is currently considered the most powerful woman in the world, on a day to day basis both in the USA and the UK the situation for women seems to me at least as good and most probably a whole lot better in the equal opportunities stakes than Germany. At least in both countries women are much less likely to be reviled for opting to have children AND a career. Count your blessings is all I can say.

Having spent several paragraphs whingeing about the situation of German women, even though I myself actually live within the British military community (another subject), I feel I should point out at least one good point. Here in Germany it's still possible for a majority of families to live on ONE salary, because housing is generally affordable. Unlike large parts of the USA, and also most of the liberal top of the Gender Report list. Women in Scandinavia not only can work, they often have no other choice, because the cost of living in that part of Europe is higher than elsewhere and also because in some Scandinavian countries women who don't work don't have any pension rights (unlike Germany, for example). Europe: there's no such thing really if you look closely.

Time to respond to some previous posts.

Talking about the fact that traditional female jobs are less valued/paid than male dominated jobs, HerrKaiser (interesting name ;)) wrote

Men who chose teaching make a teachers wage. The most notable "career" that seems underpaid and is dominated by women is K-12 teaching. But, government schools are, like other government jobs, not in the "real world" and are beholden to tax payers ability/willingness to pay. But, once again, why do women flock to teaching? Easy. No competition. No evaluation. No stress. Etc.

The last sentence (to somebody who is the daughter, the daughter-in-law and the niece of teachers) is undeniably and unnecessarily rude and, yes, best ignored.

JudgeHolden wrote:

The exception is teaching, but I wont put it in the same caregory because it requires multiple degrees, and though the burnout rate is high, the benefits are pretty good, not the least of which is protection by a powerful union.

Teaching: I assume the situation in the USA is roughly the same as in Germany, and by no means a uniform one: the older the pupils, the higher the qualification required, and the higher the pay. Currently in Germany Kindergarten teachers (which here means looking after kids age 3 - 6) don't need to have a university degree, but they still need to go to college for a few years. I have never heard of a man doing this job. At the next level (up to age 10) a bachelor's degree is required, but nowadays few men opt for it. The top level (11 - 18) also requires a top level degree, and it's there that the "benefits are pretty good" (and the burnout rate particularly high) that you meet the men. Though it also needs to be said that one of the reasons that the number of male teachers at Kindergarten or primary school level is non-existent/continues to decline (leaving kids with fewer male role models) is not only the mediocre pay, it's also because these days men who like to work with children often fear to be branded automatically as potential child abusers and opt for other jobs instead. At least that's the situation in the UK, after a number of high profile cases which were probably not always handled brilliantly.

Nursing: in Germany nurses certainly don't "make a ton of money", as HerrKaiser put it. But that's because nurses in Germany are still largely assistants, without college degrees. Even simple IV lines have to be administered by doctors (male dominated, though not hugely), no prescribing of any kind, etc. etc. But at the same time, even though "old fashioned" nursing and teaching small kids continues to be a badly paid job, women still opt for it, sometimes even - like my mother-in-law - refusing promotion if it means taking them away from the core business of dealing with (small) people. Women often seem to be drawn particularly to jobs that involve looking after people, little, old, sick. Whether that's nature or nurture, I have no idea, but one of the reasons these jobs are paid so badly is because people (again mostly women) are still willing to do them (market forces), because for many of them helping people means real job satisfaction. It's not all about money. Which equally applies to soldiering, BTW. Whereas investment bankers for example are paid such an insane amount of money because nobody would want to do those jobs otherwise.

Finally: JudeHolden wrote

Quote
Also, I myself would ask, whose watching those kids on the job site, what are THEY being paid, and why do I suspect that even in liberal Scandinavia, they are more than likely to be immigrants with far lower pay and benefits than the women whose kids they are watching. Am I trying and guilt women with kids for working, or forgetting that these kids have fathers who need to step up too. No. All Im saying is this is a way more complicatted situation than businesses simply handing out a paycheck for $1000 to a man and a paycheck for $700 to a women for the same job, and there are treadeoffs woman are making they need to consider, because its impacting there personal bottom line.

About the personal bottom line: like I wrote earlier, this seems to vary a lot depending on where you live, because public perception as well as personal preferences play a part in it. About who's looking after the kids: German hotel maids are mostly foreign, supermarket cashiers often are, but the business of looking after kids in Germany still seems to be dominated by Germans. Make of that what you wish. BTW, here in Germany foreign means one of 3 groups: legal immigrants, illegal immigrants, and residents of any number of European countries who just happen to work here. Plus of course some jobs are done elsewhere. An example: a lot of German hotels have their laundry (including folding towels!) done in Eastern Europe, as nobody in Germany would do that job at the wage offered, even though unemployment benefits are shrinking all the time.

Finally a health warning: unless quoted otherwise, all my observations are strictly anecdotal.