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Here's some example:
"Men dominate women in the majority of fortune top 100 CEO positions"
"Women dominate men in primary school teaching jobs"
Neither the men nor the women are actually purposely dominating the other. (Power over) However when you reflect on each example there is a predominance (majority of) spoken through the word "dominance".
Is there a name for this fallacy of confusing the "description" with "motivation". Such as in these examples
The issue in the example seems to be that the word "dominate" is used in two different senses. When this is done in an argument (it is not clear that this is so here) the fallacy is called equivocation.
However, some language in the post suggests a different type of reasoning, namely inferring from the mere fact of (statistical) domination of men in the CEO positions, or women in teaching, that there is an organized effort to maintain male or female (power) dominance there. The equivocation might be of minor use to bring about the thought but the major fallacy is then different, it is a case of illicitly inferring intent, cum hoc ergo propter hoc (Latin for "with this, therefore because of this"), correlation implies causation.
Now, such reasoning is not necessarily fallacious when used for heuristic purposes. Correlation certainly gives one good grounds to suspect causation, and if not direct then perhaps a roundabout and harder to detect one. While there is no conspiracy of men to keep women out of CEO positions there is (and even more so in the past, was) a culture of behavior in big business that disadvantages women. It may not be maintained by men fully consciously, but they do maintain it by conforming to rather than challenging it. Of course, the mechanism for the teaching jobs is completely different.
Some of this complexity is captured by the legal doctrine of disparate impact (as opposed to disparate treatment), which can be used to alter a hiring practice even if it has no overt intent to discriminate, to err on the side of caution, as it were.
My interpretation is that the original statements are not necessarily fallacious, but rather a question of the semantics carried by the word "dominate." To dominate can mean colloquially that one group or section of people has become a predominant portion of that group.
But you are correct that dominate usually implies having force or power, rather than a population majority.
To bear rule over, control, sway; to have a commanding influence on; to master.
Predominant:
1 b. Constituting the main, most abundant, or strongest element; prevailing, preponderating.
This is an example of the fallacy of poisoning the well. – It is a good example how propaganda works.
The poisoning (by the first earnest sentence about the men) operates by ideological verbal shift (“be in the majority” --> “dominate”) suggesting (but nearly impalpably) a ubiquitous (social) bias. If sentences like these are printed in the media or read in the TV news, they induce a subliminal programming of the public. – But this kind of speaking is ubiquitous in the media.
In the case of the sentence about the men, it is thought as a reproach (of a bias). Everybody knows these sentences, how women (and homosexuals etc.) are victims of the (natural) social order, which however is the basis of a healthy people with an intact identity. Hence the second, thereof independent, sentence about the women is nevertheless an echo of the former sentence. It is meant ironically and additionally serves to increase the general mystification. These sentences are members of the same class even if they are from different articles. Probably they are coined by the same propaganda corporation (which is part of the same network that controls the bulk of the newspapers, scientific journals and electronic media).
The description (“evaluation” as you say) of the situation has hence in these sentences been subliminally and nearly impalpably supplemented with the suggestion* of the existence of a (social) bias (of a healthy folk) against the (crude) dogma of the equality of all humans.°) – That this suggestion* is nearly impalpable, effectuates that it is almost ironclad, because someone who feels that it is fishy, nearly cannot articulate it, since he risks to be called a quibbler.
A bias is always a questionable motivation. It is called bias regarded from a certain point of view*, which is suggested as the right one. Hence to suggest a bias is not a fallacy unless that point of view* is part of a manipulative ideology or mission (to poison the well and the identity), which is obviously the case here.
Footnotes:
°) This is the politically correct or freemasonic standard dogma, which is a manifestation of Rumpelstiltskin’s principle.
