Men's rights/issues thread- Grab 'em right by the willy

[JGP]

On 1/25/2017 at 1:37 PM, PrettyPig said:

With each generation that gets further away from the 1950s nuclear family model, the playing field becomes more even.  Millennials/GenNext are, I believe, the first generation that as a whole didn't necessarily have that Cleaver concept as a family standard - the 90s and 00s in particular are when we started seeing the upswing in nontraditional family units, be it single parents, same-sex parents, extended families, blended families, whatever.  Now the kids that experienced this are applying it to their own adulthood, and I think, I HOPE, this means we'll start seeing the scales balance a bit:   women/moms gain a bit more freedom and support (particularly in the workplace), men/fathers gain more rights and considerations (both at work and domestically).      Life is so much better and easier when everyone can work together to make the sandwiches. 

Your words to... whatever's ear. 

Making togetherness, one sammy at a time. 

[JGP]

12 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

One of the reasons I think that the Mens Rights movement is growing so much is that men are a little tired of being demonised the whole time, with no way to stand up and say 'actually its not men who are the bad guys all the time'. Domestic abuse is one of those things, although its clear men are more likely to use their fists I think women are equally capable of abuse in many ways.

 

23 minutes ago, mankytoes said:

I've always found it quite easy to stand up and say that, and most men and women support that view. Listening to some people speak, you'd think our governments were run by radical feminists.

From a different angle, however, that illustration seems kind of smokey, a distraction, even if unintentional. 

It's natural to get kind of defensive, but is it actually relevant to bring it up when the particular topic at hand may be male generated domestic abuse directed at their partner? A good friend of mine is a big proponent of our need to deal with male aggression in general, and he's absolutely right in stating that not enough men are talking to each other about it.

In my opinion, Men's Right's Groups aren't actually doing themselves any favors. Now, Men's Groups, where they have round tables on the nebulous idea of what exactly being a Man is, or is supposed to be, who discuss these kinds of things thoughtfully --like male aggression, etc-- that's what men [and everyone, I'd argue] need more of.

Lots more. 

[Isalie]

15 hours ago, Savannah said:

When teaching kids you'll always meet families that have different values than you. 

You might not think they are the smartest values but they are not your kids so it's not up to you to try to bypass the values of that family. 
You value academic performance over athletic performance, that's really obvious.
20 plus hours of practice for 6th graders sound like they do have professional ambition? 
You obviously don't like it, but why do you feel the need to act like that ambition is any less important than academic ambition? 
You said so yourself, It's not any less important, it's just different. 

I don't know if you even read what I write, and if you do, I'm not sure why you find it controversial. If society valued academic results higher, children would too, if boys learned from an early age that academic results carry a positive status, they would perform better.

As for me, I grew up in the same culture as the rest of us westerners. I've always loved to compete, I've played many different sports and you can probably count the Roma games I've missed since 2002 on your fingers (I couldn't watch the 2000/2001 cause we didn't have the channel). I've also always loved to learn stuff, but never cared about school and can probably still be caught bragging about how little I cared and how many stupid things I did as a adolescent. I'm not criticizing the problem the problem from the outside.

Having written this, I realize I should've just ignored your personal comments. Anyway, unless you have something new to say, I'm out of this.

[mankytoes]

12 hours ago, JEORDHl said:

From a different angle, however, that illustration seems kind of smokey, a distraction, even if unintentional. 

It's natural to get kind of defensive, but is it actually relevant to bring it up when the particular topic at hand may be male generated domestic abuse directed at their partner? A good friend of mine is a big proponent of our need to deal with male aggression in general, and he's absolutely right in stating that not enough men are talking to each other about it.

In my opinion, Men's Right's Groups aren't actually doing themselves any favors. Now, Men's Groups, where they have round tables on the nebulous idea of what exactly being a Man is, or is supposed to be, who discuss these kinds of things thoughtfully --like male aggression, etc-- that's what men [and everyone, I'd argue] need more of.

Lots more. 

Not always, and it's frustrating when people try and just talk about men's issues anytime there is a discussion about women's issues. But this is a thread about men's issues, it's definitely relevant to talk about abuse of men here.

I know this is true of me. I got some bad news the other day, and wandered around punching walls. I'm not a violent person, but I don't deal with anger or aggression well. I don't mind talking about it, but I'm not really sure what I would say.

[JGP]

Thing is, in whichever form, if a woman in a partnership is the abusive one, while the fallout is his and/or the family's to cope with-- the issue is actually hers.

I'm a middle aged man now, but honestly, I don't think I really got a handle on how to deal with intense feelings until the last 8 years or so. My dad, though seldom on this count, would either get spectacularly angry or just wall off and retreat inside himself. My male friends and I would talk to each other, occasionally, about what was bothering us but in general the feedback revolved around, If I was in that situation I'd do X, instead of, like, how to actually process the emotional experience itself let alone what types of expression were healthy or not.

So, repress repress, explode. An entire generation, where I grew up, anyway. It's fucked up.

 

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

15 hours ago, JEORDHl said:

Thing is, in whichever form, if a woman in a partnership is the abusive one, while the fallout is his and/or the family's to cope with-- the issue is actually hers.

I'm a middle aged man now, but honestly, I don't think I really got a handle on how to deal with intense feelings until the last 8 years or so. My dad, though seldom on this count, would either get spectacularly angry or just wall off and retreat inside himself. My male friends and I would talk to each other, occasionally, about what was bothering us but in general the feedback revolved around, If I was in that situation I'd do X, instead of, like, how to actually process the emotional experience itself let alone what types of expression were healthy or not.

So, repress repress, explode. An entire generation, where I grew up, anyway. It's fucked up.

 

Well I'm of the opinion that its perfectly possible to deal with feelings and intense emotions without having to share and discuss with people. Everyone handles things differently. There's a narrative that men are constrained by this stiff upper lip repression and it kills them inside and if only they could talk and share like women then everything would be fine. I don't think that is always the case. Yes some people have anger issues, but I know plenty of people who have no problem sharing their emotions who at the same time have extreme anger issues. If you are able to process your emotions and understand them and simply be aware of them like an observer than its far easier to behave rationally and not out of pure emotion. Simply talking about it isn't the answer in all cases.

So are the traditional views of masculinity bad? I don't always think they are, even if as a society we tend to view many of the qualities that traditionally formed what it meant to be a man as backwards or neanderthal and unhelpful. 
 

[Savannah]

On 1/27/2017 at 11:29 AM, Mikael said:

I don't know if you even read what I write, and if you do, I'm not sure why you find it controversial. If society valued academic results higher, children would too, if boys learned from an early age that academic results carry a positive status, they would perform better.

As for me, I grew up in the same culture as the rest of us westerners. I've always loved to compete, I've played many different sports and you can probably count the Roma games I've missed since 2002 on your fingers (I couldn't watch the 2000/2001 cause we didn't have the channel). I've also always loved to learn stuff, but never cared about school and can probably still be caught bragging about how little I cared and how many stupid things I did as a adolescent. I'm not criticizing the problem the problem from the outside.

Having written this, I realize I should've just ignored your personal comments. Anyway, unless you have something new to say, I'm out of this.

There seems to be a misunderstanding. I'm in no means questioning your set of values, of course there's nothing wrong with valuing academics. 

Roma games is some pretty great sports. That could only thrive in a place that values sports dearly. That's something to be proud of.

Both should be valued, right. 

 

[mankytoes]

Interesting article about a feminist who made a film about men's rights, and got (partially) coverted-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/item/55285fcb-81a4-424b-92ab-6c10278b5ab5

 

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

2 hours ago, mankytoes said:

Interesting article about a feminist who made a film about men's rights, and got (partially) coverted-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/item/55285fcb-81a4-424b-92ab-6c10278b5ab5

 

I've seen an interview with her before. It was interesting to see someone from the other side look at Mens Right guys and decide they aren't all arseholes. That doesn't mean there isn't a great many of them who ARE arseholes however.

[mankytoes]

On 28/01/2017 at 9:51 PM, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

I've seen an interview with her before. It was interesting to see someone from the other side look at Mens Right guys and decide they aren't all arseholes. That doesn't mean there isn't a great many of them who ARE arseholes however.

Well I agree with them about what some of the issues are, but the solutions I tend to disagree a lot on. They mainly seem to talk about going backwards to the previous system, which I think would only make a lot of the things we've talked about- paternity, mental health- worse.

That's without getting into general problems with sexism, social conservatism and anti feminism. But they shouldn't just be dismissed out of hand, though they sometimes act so provocatively they can't really blame anyone.

[Isalie]

Heh, even if women were willing to stay home en masse, I kind of doubt that companies would be willing to double the men's pay to make this work. 

I read an interesting thing the other day, about kids in the US, where seven olds, both boys and girls, agreed that men are more intelligent than women. So even with that head start, the boys manages to fail. Seriously though, I guess that even in regards to the boys, the idea of intelligent men may very well be the stereotype of the lone genious creating science or self made millionaire etc, not all men. 

[Theda Baratheon]

I'm posting these two pictures because I think they're very important...

 

[MerenthaClone]

On 1/28/2017 at 2:02 PM, mankytoes said:

Interesting article about a feminist who made a film about men's rights, and got (partially) coverted-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/item/55285fcb-81a4-424b-92ab-6c10278b5ab5

 

The idea that feminists don't care about men's rights is weird to me.  "The patriarchy hurts everyone" is a pretty common refrain.  The idea that a lot of MRAs are actually into some of the legitimate gender disparities such as military service isn't surprising, but one of the major voices driving the lack of women in the military is women.  The gender discrimination in the selective service is driven by men and opposed by most feminists that I am aware of.  So for her to be "converted" isn't really a correct terminology so much as her becoming aware of modern feminist thought.    Men do face unique issues and those should be addressed, definitely.  The problem is that whatever core of intellectual honesty is at the heart of some MRA advocacy groups is drowned out by a ton of angry misogynists latching onto arguments to justify their misogyny.  Separating those, especially over the internet, takes time and effort and you don't know when you engage with one whether they're going to be a shithead after you spent some time and effort talking with them.  Plus, so many of their solutions seem to revolve around weird zero-sum ideas of gender roles and advocacy for returns to social norms that massively hurt women, even if they were supposedly better for men.  

Should we talk about selective service?  Yeah, definitely.  Does that example of gender discrimination come from the patriarchal idea that women are unfit for the military?  Also yeah.  

[Theda Baratheon]

19 minutes ago, Theda Baratheon said:

I'm posting these two pictures because I think they're very important...

 

this is why i think ''mens groups'' aren't a bad thing, men supporting each other is never a bad thing, men having close intimate friendships is not a bad thing - it's just such a shame that ''mens right '' groups don't give a shit about actually helping men - all they're interested in is shitting on feminism, and by extension, women as a whole

men need to help each other; women can't do all the work - don't get me wrong, feminists are sympathetic to mens issues, of course they are; but it has to start with men helping themselves 

[maarsen]

As a man I really do not find men's groups to be something I would ever want to join. I just find most men to be boring and not really interested in life going on around them. I am a shy person and maybe that has something to do with it, but as a boy too shy to even talk to a girl when I was young,  I seemed to end up with more female friends  than male friends. Women just seem to be smarter  and more interesting.  A good example is the poster just above me.

[Kalbear]

I think that's largely cultural, not gender-based. I've found it a lot easier to make female friends that I cared about and wanted to spend time with too, for similar reasons, but a lot of that is that they're actually willing to talk about things in much less guarded ways than men are. That lack of vulnerability isn't a gender-based issue at all; other cultures show significantly more ability to be compassionate, open, nurturing and visibly emotional compared to the puritanical English-American cultures. 

The reason that men often should have a group is because they (just like women) have different cultural life experiences that are shared by other men. And it's a good thing to be able to share those things with others. How men in the US do this now is through, well, gross sexual bragging and often disgusting comments, because that's the only thing allowed to them - but it doesn't have to be this way, and it shouldn't. I'm not sure that drum circles and sweat lodges are the right answer either, but they are something.

[Theda Baratheon]

44 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I think that's largely cultural, not gender-based. I've found it a lot easier to make female friends that I cared about and wanted to spend time with too, for similar reasons, but a lot of that is that they're actually willing to talk about things in much less guarded ways than men are. That lack of vulnerability isn't a gender-based issue at all; other cultures show significantly more ability to be compassionate, open, nurturing and visibly emotional compared to the puritanical English-American cultures. 

The reason that men often should have a group is because they (just like women) have different cultural life experiences that are shared by other men. And it's a good thing to be able to share those things with others. How men in the US do this now is through, well, gross sexual bragging and often disgusting comments, because that's the only thing allowed to them - but it doesn't have to be this way, and it shouldn't. I'm not sure that drum circles and sweat lodges are the right answer either, but they are something.

Yep. I'm all for men developing strong, intimate, close bonds with other men or just hanging out with other guys and discussing their lived experiences. Really, genuinely, honestly, think the world would be a better place in a lot of ways if men, in general, just had more friends and better friendships!!!! 

[Egalitarianism Always]

12 hours ago, Theda Baratheon said:

I'm posting these two pictures because I think they're very important...

 

Theda, there's friends and superficial friends, the issue in the post you linked to addresses some men's inability to have superficial friends which does hinder development of true friendships.  A woman might have superficial friends with an equal inability to talk honestly with, or worse cause severe troubles in a relationship, troubles easily equal to the man who has only one relationship.  The inability to have honest talk applies equally to both traditional genders though for differing reasons.

The post you linked too starts with the premise that men are more likely to be violent, a contentiousness claim in itself and thus ends with the cliched and debunked idea that men are the domestic violent ones and even worse murderous ones.  The projection that men are more violent than women is a severe issue in society, a horrible hang over from the brain washing applied to people in previous societies to keep people divided and fighting and in roles that serve the ruling Oligarchy.  The implications of that projection are truly terrible.  When I heard on the TV some years ago that serial killers are all males I knew there was a severe problem here.  That is changing as films like Gone Girl illustrate, but the common garden murderer who is a woman however is still protected by that very terrible fallacy that men are significantly more violent.   Men subjected to severe force in an incident with their woman partner, the figure stood at 48.6% in 2006-07, 48.3% the next year and 37.5% in 2008-09, Home Office statistics show.  That's where the man partner is still alive.  The problem with murder is there's very often no witness.  So a man murdered by his woman partner often has no witness, and in a court of law the juries brainwashing by the Oligarchy turning the white hats and black hats idea into white hat (woman) black hat (man) a simple conceptual framework some people use and the post you linked too was an example of, however that simple conceptual framework allows some other people to be truly villainous, either servants of the Oligarchy and the Oligarchy themselves.  Man and woman were created in the Bible by members of the original Oligarchy: religion.  Created to divide people and pit them against one another while the Oligarchy keeps the vast amount of resources to themselves.

Here's a starter truer picture of man and woman violence, it is far more equal even though the statistics are marred by the Oligarchy's use of the the black hat and white hat simple conceptual framework.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/sep/05/men-victims-domestic-violence

"The charity's analysis of statistics on domestic violence shows the number of men attacked by wives or girlfriends is much higher than thought. Its report, Domestic Violence: The Male Perspective, states: "Domestic violence is often seen as a female victim/male perpetrator problem, but the evidence demonstrates that this is a false picture."

The charity's analysis of statistics on domestic violence shows the number of men attacked by wives or girlfriends is much higher than thought. Its report, Domestic Violence: The Male Perspective, states: "Domestic violence is often seen as a female victim/male perpetrator problem, but the evidence demonstrates that this is a false picture."

More than 40% of domestic violence victims are male.

Similar or slightly larger numbers of men were subjected to severe force in an incident with their partner, according to the same documents. The figure stood at 48.6% in 2006-07, 48.3% the next year and 37.5% in 2008-09, Home Office statistics show.

Campaigners claim that men are often treated as "second-class victims" and that many police forces and councils do not take them seriously. "Male victims are almost invisible to the authorities such as the police, who rarely can be prevailed upon to take the man's side," said John Mays of Parity. "Their plight is largely overlooked by the media, in official reports and in government policy, for example in the provision of refuge places – 7,500 for females in England and Wales but only 60 for men."

Men assaulted by their partners are often ignored by police, see their attacker go free and have far fewer refuges to flee to than women, says a study by the men's rights campaign group Parity."

 

[Martell Spy]

One form of male friendship which I believe is fairly common is groups of men focused on some particular activity. Tabletop rpg games and basketball in my case. On the one hand, there isn't a ton of sharing feelings or even in depth talking, but It wouldn't say it's shallow. The friendships are genuine and in some cases I've had these friends 26 years, way back in high school. Also, I'm a very withdrawn person, so it works out fairly well for me.

[Liffguard]

I absolutely agree that we need to de-stigmatise the idea of men having close, open, emotionally intimate friendships with each other. We need to de-stigmatise the idea of men being vulnerable and willing to ask for help and support.

We also need to be careful not to overcompensate and end up criticising men who are actually fine with being somewhat more stoic and reticent. And for that matter, it should also be perfectly fine for women to also prefer to keep their emotions to themselves without being called a bitch, haughty, ice-queen etc.

I don't think that we're approaching that point yet, but when I have this discussion with people it's often framed as if emotional openness is good and emotional reticence is bad. Some people are naturally more comfortable with keeping their emotions and their vulnerabilities largely to themselves, without it being a case of repression. I want to see men more willing to open up, and society more accepting of men opening up, but not to the extent that men who choose not to are criticised instead. I'd rather the conversation be about recognising that different people have different emotional needs regardless of gender.