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

[DunderMifflin]

I think specific identity groups are bound for failure in the long run, and I mean failure to really be about equality. That's why I always liked the term civil rights, it's not a title that renders focus and help to one specific group or type of person. 

The rise of male rights activism, to me just seems a way to combat overbearing and at times completely unfair feminism rather than honest care about the many legitimate areas where men receive the harshest treatment from society.

It gets to a point where your version of equality for whatever group you represent becomes more important to you than anything else in life. And you expect everyone else to treat it as such. 

And logic becomes, say in a society of slavery. The indictment against slavery can tend not to focus on the fact that slavery exists. Identity politics can tend to go to places where solving it has the logic of "hey, why aren't there more women and minority slave owners, this is bullshit. Equality!"  

When these "help only one type of person"  groups get too powerful IMO they stall progress. With careers and money being made there's incentive to keep problems arouns so you can still profit from being anti-those problems. And the antagonizing of others not in your group who rightly or wrongly feel their own problems deserve just as much attention and validation as your own but arent getting it makes IMO identity politics bound to go bad and halt progress.

 

[Larry of the Lawn]

1 hour ago, DunderMifflin said:

I think specific identity groups are bound for failure in the long run, and I mean failure to really be about equality. That's why I always liked the term civil rights, it's not a title that renders focus and help to one specific group or type of person. 

The rise of male rights activism, to me just seems a way to combat overbearing and at times completely unfair feminism rather than honest care about the many legitimate areas where men receive the harshest treatment from society.

It gets to a point where your version of equality for whatever group you represent becomes more important to you than anything else in life. And you expect everyone else to treat it as such. 

And logic becomes, say in a society of slavery. The indictment against slavery can tend not to focus on the fact that slavery exists. Identity politics can tend to go to places where solving it has the logic of "hey, why aren't there more women and minority slave owners, this is bullshit. Equality!"  

When these "help only one type of person"  groups get too powerful IMO they stall progress. With careers and money being made there's incentive to keep problems arouns so you can still profit from being anti-those problems. And the antagonizing of others not in your group who rightly or wrongly feel their own problems deserve just as much attention and validation as your own but arent getting it makes IMO identity politics bound to go bad and halt progress.

 

And it only took till the top of page two to get the straw-feminist stuff.  You might want to read Datepalm's posts on the previous page.  

 

Also, using the term civil rights is great, until you actually have to get specific.  It's great to say 'everyone should be treated equally', but when it turns out that isn't the case, and that people are being treated as less because of their sex, gender, race, country of origin or $cashmoneynetworth$, it shouldn't be surprising that they find others in the same boat to rally around.  Or that we need to use these specific terms to describe the inequality.

 For example, if the Civil Rights Act magically made its' contents de facto and not just de jure, we wouldn't need Black Lives Matter.   Because black people wouldn't be much more likely to suffer police violence than other races are.

 

[mankytoes]

1 hour ago, Spockydog said:

The latter. As Mormont says, they are serious issues. But it probably won't be long before the flame wars are ignited by some idiot whining about 'male genocide' or some other bollocks.

Well I hope that, if that happens, people will be able to ignore that person (though I can't say I'm always great at doing that myself).

1 hour ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Actually, @Lyanna Stark (I think) linked some great things in the feminist thread about the fact that what one thinks about in terms of "feminism" is white and middle class.  It is a great point and there was a great discussion on this point.  That is, there is a class overlay on all of these issues, both for men and women.  

Yeah, to be fair I know a lot of feminists have criticised how middle class focused the movement is.

[Stubby]

2 hours ago, DunderMifflin said:

I think specific identity groups are bound for failure in the long run, and I mean failure to really be about equality. That's why I always liked the term civil rights, it's not a title that renders focus and help to one specific group or type of person. 

The rise of male rights activism, to me just seems a way to combat overbearing and at times completely unfair feminism rather than honest care about the many legitimate areas where men receive the harshest treatment from society.

It gets to a point where your version of equality for whatever group you represent becomes more important to you than anything else in life. And you expect everyone else to treat it as such. 

And logic becomes, say in a society of slavery. The indictment against slavery can tend not to focus on the fact that slavery exists. Identity politics can tend to go to places where solving it has the logic of "hey, why aren't there more women and minority slave owners, this is bullshit. Equality!"  

When these "help only one type of person"  groups get too powerful IMO they stall progress. With careers and money being made there's incentive to keep problems arouns so you can still profit from being anti-those problems. And the antagonizing of others not in your group who rightly or wrongly feel their own problems deserve just as much attention and validation as your own but arent getting it makes IMO identity politics bound to go bad and halt progress.

 

1. Feminism is just asking for equality.  What is "completely unfair" about that?  I say it is completely unfair that a woman in the same job as me gets paid less for putting in the same time and effort.  And that is only one example.

2. Inserting slave ownership is a straw argument.

3. When you say 'help only one type of person' you are clearly ignoring the fact that such persons are the ones who need help.  Others don't.  Like white blokes (a group of which I am a member).  We have so many cultural advantages in our favour that it is beyond ridiculous to suggest otherwise. Sure, as a cultural group of humans, white blokes have some issues and some of those white blokes are going to need help to overcome those issues.

I don't get it the opposition to feminism.  We are all humans, after all.    

[Kalbear]

12 hours ago, mankytoes said:

 

The main issues we face in Western countries as far as I can tell are-

- Paternity, and whether fathers do/should have equal rights as mothers.

- Crime/Justice, and whether men do/should receive equal punishments as women.

- Education, where boys are consistantly doing worse overall

- Addiction, how men are significantly more likely to be addicted to alcohol and drugs

- Health, where men die younger and commit suicide more

 

Let's go through with these individually and see how we can tackle them.

• Paternity rights continue to favor women (ironically given the term) largely because women are seen as the nurturers who should take care of children while men are seen as not as capable. This seems to be fixed more readily by encouraging women help career growth while encouraging men to be caregivers, and promote both. Probably not solely a man's issue, and certainly not easily fought unless considered through the lens of egalitarianism.
• Crime/justice is pretty harsh for women as well - while men are more likely to get harsher sentences, women are more likely to be victimized and not have justice. I suspect strongly this has much more of a problem along ethnicity than it does sex, and along wealth vs. sex, but I could be wrong. Another aspect to be considered here is that boys early on are given far more leeway in behaving badly compared to girls, and this contributes to a certain lawlessness later on.
• Education is a pretty big one. I suspect some of the reasons behind #2 also go with this. Removing some of the outlets for physical education in schools is also hurting boys, as has been seen in studies. Higher education and college is where it's really getting interesting to me, however, and I wonder how much drug use/independence is really helping.
• Addiction I think is also more of a societal thing - women, for instance, are encouraged to drink wine and underreport alcoholism heavily. I've not seen any studies indicating that males are particularly more prone to addiction than females physiologically, which makes me think it is societal permissiveness along with allowing men to do more hard drugs and get rewarded for it socially. 
• Mental health and physical health are major issues that men need to deal with, and part of that simply comes from machismo culture that says you don't talk about hurt, you don't talk about feelings and you drink it away as the 'acceptable' way to go. Men have significantly fewer intimate relationships, almost none that aren't sexual, and have almost no outlets for male bonding that aren't riddled with other problems. Physical contact between men is forbidden too. It's absolutely atrociously bad. It is something as a father that I constantly attempt to showcase with my sons - kissing, hugging, touching - because I want them to not even remotely think for a second that it is bad. 
  
  Making 'seeing a therapist' as a pre-existing condition that can allow health insurance to not cover you kind of sucks ass in this regard, too. 

[DunderMifflin]

39 minutes ago, Stubby said:

1. Feminism is just asking for equality.  What is "completely unfair" about that?  I say it is completely unfair that a woman in the same job as me gets paid less for putting in the same time and effort.  And that is only one example.

2. Inserting slave ownership is a straw argument.

3. When you say 'help only one type of person' you are clearly ignoring the fact that such persons are the ones who need help.  Others don't.  Like white blokes (a group of which I am a member).  We have so many cultural advantages in our favour that it is beyond ridiculous to suggest otherwise. Sure, as a cultural group of humans, white blokes have some issues and some of those white blokes are going to need help to overcome those issues.

I don't get it the opposition to feminism.  We are all humans, after all.    

Are they the only ones that need help? Is the help they need more important than help others not represented by their group need? How much attention and help to their causes do they get from society vs others that need help. How much acknowledgement of their own privilege and place in the heirarchy of  special interest politics is there? 

This is the point where they stall out of effectiveness imo.

[Stubby]

11 minutes ago, DunderMifflin said:

Are they the only ones that need help? Is the help they need more important than help others not represented by their group need? How much attention and help to their causes do they get from society vs others that need help. How much acknowledgement of their own privilege and place in the heirarchy of  special interest politics is there? 

This is the point where they stall out of effectiveness imo.

1. No. I clearly said that.

2. Not necessarily.  I also clearly said that.

3. Not much, in reality, because the fight for equality for women is still happening over 100 years after a Western nation gave them the vote.

4. Plenty.

Your opinion is based on a failure to recognise the actual issue.  Which is that female humans are humans just as much as male humans.  It is about there being no need to march in their millions so that a select group of highly privileged white men will accept their argument.  Because every time the argument is presented in a rational way the response is to belittle women by suggesting that men have it just as bad.  Which is what you are doing.

As someone said upthread, your argument is the exact same argument being run by the #alllivesmatter proponents.  Which misses the point by such a wide margin it is not just a missed free throw, it's not even on the same court.

[DunderMifflin]

12 minutes ago, Stubby said:

1. No. I clearly said that.

2. Not necessarily.  I also clearly said that.

3. Not much, in reality, because the fight for equality for women is still happening over 100 years after a Western nation gave them the vote.

4. Plenty.

Your opinion is based on a failure to recognise the actual issue.  Which is that female humans are humans just as much as male humans.  It is about there being no need to march in their millions so that a select group of highly privileged white men will accept their argument.  Because every time the argument is presented in a rational way the response is to belittle women by suggesting that men have it just as bad.  Which is what you are doing.

As someone said upthread, your argument is the exact same argument being run by the #alllivesmatter proponents.  Which misses the point by such a wide margin it is not just a missed free throw, it's not even on the same court.

What happens when everyone doesn't agree with you on what "the actual issue" is. 

Or worse, that your "actual issue" is deemed less important than another's "actual issue"

 

[Wrl6199]

14 minutes ago, Stubby said:

1. No. I clearly said that.

2. Not necessarily.  I also clearly said that.

3. Not much, in reality, because the fight for equality for women is still happening over 100 years after a Western nation gave them the vote.

4. Plenty.

Your opinion is based on a failure to recognise the actual issue.  Which is that female humans are humans just as much as male humans.  It is about there being no need to march in their millions so that a select group of highly privileged white men will accept their argument.  Because every time the argument is presented in a rational way the response is to belittle women by suggesting that men have it just as bad.  Which is what you are doing.

As someone said upthread, your argument is the exact same argument being run by the #alllivesmatter proponents.  Which misses the point by such a wide margin it is not just a missed free throw, it's not even on the same court.

I agree with you hear. I mean obviously there are issues that men do face but they obviously pale in comparison to the issues that women still face. But yeah I could see how a thread like this could be controversial in this community especially considering how liberal this site tends to lean.

[Stubby]

38 minutes ago, DunderMifflin said:

What happens when everyone doesn't agree with you on what "the actual issue" is. 

Or worse, that your "actual issue" is deemed less important than another's "actual issue"

 

1. I always like it when I am told what the actual issue is when it's not.  It's called strawmanning.  Usually, it's done because the person employing it doesn't like the actual issue or cannot argue against it.  It's like an opponent of marriage equality bringing up the silly suggestion that marriage to pets might as well be permitted as a reason to oppose marriage equality.  They are not the same thing.  In this case, the simple issue is that women want to be seen and treated as equals to men.  It is not abour removing rights from men.  It is not about denigrating or emasculating men.  It is not about checking a woman's privilege.  How hard is that to comprehend?

2. This is you dodging the issue.  In this case, you want to argue about something else than equality for women.

2.1 Further, please tell me where I said that women's rights to equality are more important than some other issue?  You will find that I expressly said otherwise.

And now, a yes or no question for you.  Is it fair for a woman to do the same job as a man and get paid less?

[DunderMifflin]

58 minutes ago, Stubby said:

1. I always like it when I am told what the actual issue is when it's not.  It's called strawmanning.  Usually, it's done because the person employing it doesn't like the actual issue or cannot argue against it.  It's like an opponent of marriage equality bringing up the silly suggestion that marriage to pets might as well be permitted as a reason to oppose marriage equality.  They are not the same thing.  In this case, the simple issue is that women want to be seen and treated as equals to men.  It is not abour removing rights from men.  It is not about denigrating or emasculating men.  It is not about checking a woman's privilege.  How hard is that to comprehend?

2. This is you dodging the issue.  In this case, you want to argue about something else than equality for women.

2.1 Further, please tell me where I said that women's rights to equality are more important than some other issue?  You will find that I expressly said otherwise.

And now, a yes or no question for you.  Is it fair for a woman to do the same job as a man and get paid less?

Isn't there already a feminism thread to debate women's rights issues? 

I'm just giving my opinion on specific identity politics.

[Stubby]

13 minutes ago, DunderMifflin said:

Isn't there already a feminism thread to debate women's rights issues? 

I'm just giving my opinion on specific identity politics.

Yes there is another thread.  You brought the arguments against feminism into this one.

Your opinion doesn't make sense.

[DunderMifflin]

4 minutes ago, Stubby said:

Yes there is another thread.  You brought the arguments against feminism into this one.

Your opinion doesn't make sense.

Sorry, my intentions were not to single out feminism in my criticisms of identity politics but it happens to link closely to this issue imo. Whatever "arguments against feminism" I brought up were in no way an attempt to single out feminism. 

[karaddin]

12 hours ago, mankytoes said:

Patriachy cuts both ways- exactly. To say patriachy helps men and harms women is a vast oversimplification.

I think (and I'm not arguing with you that it's commonly perceived the way you said) that its much more accurate to say patriarchy helps men's power. Having power isn't good for an awful lot of men, being expected to have power and not is absolutely devastating to a lot. The word is integral to my feminism and its just as true here - its all about intersectionality, you can't divorce this shit from race, you can't divorce it from class. Patriarchy is a societal model designed (intentionally or not) to serve the men with wealth, the men with power, and to keep them there. It has the flow on effect at times of raising men of the same tier by other measures (ie same class, same race) above the women beside them, but that's a side effect and not the point, and it's double edged and cuts those men just as much as it serves them.

[Datepalm]

I don't know - I think a lot of feminist arguments, that I'm familiar with anyway, absolutely and vocally espouse the paradigm that patriarchy is not so much a system of dominance of women by men, as a system with rigid gender expectations for both sexes with confer some advantages and disadvantages on both genders in different spheres, (women's broader license for friendship, for example, or more materially, yes, the lower incarceration rate,) though not denying that generally political power and public societal influence have traditionally skewed male. This was also some of the first-wave feminist issues - right to vote. right to own property. right to higher education, which to a large extent, have been achieved in the technical sense.

I think the fact that those boxes have been ticked for several generations but we're still in a highly unequal society is what leads to a more complex understanding of gender equality as encompassing issues of masculine gender roles, and recognizing their restrictions. It's definitely a feminist issue to my mind that significantly more women are earning college degrees (but are underrepresented in high-earning fields) and that a boy can get to college before encoutering a pedagogical figure that isn't a woman. There's no 'victory' there. Beyond the binary state of having a right to vote or not, or a right to go to college or not, there's the patriarchy still funneling people into niches in subtle, very personal, cultural ways, where women get saddled with childcare, making their degrees moot, or men as a category underpreform in the fastest growing economic sectors because there are cultural barriers to being a male nurse or kindergarden teacher.

Ironically (or not) I think it's patriarchial culture that is pushing back against the understanding of patriarchy-is-a-problem-for-men...it suggests that, as Karaddin says, it is a shift that will require men to give up some power, but in truth, they've already lost much of it through a weakening of gender roles. But, unlike women, men have stayed (some of them) resistant to embracing the gains to be made by broader acceptable norms accross genders, and now are getting ever meaner and more insistent (it seems, as a category) about holding on and clawing back what is perceived as that old power, instead of letting it go and taking the new stuff being offered instead. Ie, yes, you cannot grab people by the pussy anymore, but you can have plenty of casual sex without social stigma for anyone if you do it right. But instead of a sexual utopia, we get rape culture. You can't have the job at the plant back, but you can have goddamned hobbies because you're in a two-income household and you don't have to be the main breadwinner...but instead of less labour-intensive lives for all, men are feeling 'emasculated' and there's a spike in alcoholism and suicide. Etc.

Obviously, a lot of this structural, its not just some guy somewhere sitting around and stubbornly refusing to take that clerical job after they closed down the mine and drinking himself to death like he's in a Springsteen song. But that's why broader political and economic policy and social and cultural changes matter, which has been the feminist line all along - one of the arguments against feminism for a long time has been 'aren't you done?' Any woman that really, really wants to can become a CEO or an astrophysicist, here, lots of them are, its just that the rest are not choosing it...well, any man that wants to can get a job or get ...lots of them have. But male unemployment is still a systemic and gendered issue, just like women's lower earnings.

[Altherion]

42 minutes ago, Datepalm said:

But, unlike women, men have stayed (some of them) resistant to embracing the gains to be made by broader acceptable norms accross genders, and now are getting ever meaner and more insistent (it seems, as a category) about holding on and clawing back what is perceived as that old power, instead of letting it go and taking the new stuff being offered instead. Ie, yes, you cannot grab people by the pussy anymore, but you can have plenty of casual sex without social stigma for anyone if you do it right. But instead of a sexual utopia, we get rape culture.

The very term "rape culture" is arguably part of the problem, but I don't want to get into it in this thread. Instead, I'd like to point out that, in this instance at least, men who were interested primarily in sex most certainly have "embraced the gains." Here is an article about the college gender gap working in favor of those men who are in a significant minority. Outside of college, there is a variety of dating sites and apps which allow for selection of appropriate partners for any set of preferences. Of course, if one is interested primarily in love, casual sex without social stigma is not very useful.

58 minutes ago, Datepalm said:

You can't have the job at the plant back, but you can have goddamned hobbies because you're in a two-income household and you don't have to be the main breadwinner...but instead of less labour-intensive lives for all, men are feeling 'emasculated' and there's a spike in alcoholism and suicide.

Less labor-intensive lives for all would have been the optimal result of women's entry into the labor force... but that's not what actually happened (at least not in the US). Here is a table of part-time median weekly wages and here's the full-time equivalent. As you can see, two people working part-time don't come anywhere close to making as much money as a single person working full time -- even three part-time people aren't close. There's a variety of possible two-person configurations and some of them do result in more money for the family, but, on the whole, the main people who have benefited from the increased labor force are the capitalists (as was utterly predictable simply from the laws of supply and demand...).

[Datepalm]

Well, exactly - as I said, there's structural issues - like capitalism, and continuing gender imbalance - that mean that dealing with men's issues a policy and cultural question as well as a personal one.

[mankytoes]

8 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Let's go through with these individually and see how we can tackle them.

• Paternity rights continue to favor women (ironically given the term) largely because women are seen as the nurturers who should take care of children while men are seen as not as capable. This seems to be fixed more readily by encouraging women help career growth while encouraging men to be caregivers, and promote both. Probably not solely a man's issue, and certainly not easily fought unless considered through the lens of egalitarianism.
• Crime/justice is pretty harsh for women as well - while men are more likely to get harsher sentences, women are more likely to be victimized and not have justice. I suspect strongly this has much more of a problem along ethnicity than it does sex, and along wealth vs. sex, but I could be wrong. Another aspect to be considered here is that boys early on are given far more leeway in behaving badly compared to girls, and this contributes to a certain lawlessness later on.
• Education is a pretty big one. I suspect some of the reasons behind #2 also go with this. Removing some of the outlets for physical education in schools is also hurting boys, as has been seen in studies. Higher education and college is where it's really getting interesting to me, however, and I wonder how much drug use/independence is really helping.
• Addiction I think is also more of a societal thing - women, for instance, are encouraged to drink wine and underreport alcoholism heavily. I've not seen any studies indicating that males are particularly more prone to addiction than females physiologically, which makes me think it is societal permissiveness along with allowing men to do more hard drugs and get rewarded for it socially. 
• Mental health and physical health are major issues that men need to deal with, and part of that simply comes from machismo culture that says you don't talk about hurt, you don't talk about feelings and you drink it away as the 'acceptable' way to go. Men have significantly fewer intimate relationships, almost none that aren't sexual, and have almost no outlets for male bonding that aren't riddled with other problems. Physical contact between men is forbidden too. It's absolutely atrociously bad. It is something as a father that I constantly attempt to showcase with my sons - kissing, hugging, touching - because I want them to not even remotely think for a second that it is bad. 
  
  Making 'seeing a therapist' as a pre-existing condition that can allow health insurance to not cover you kind of sucks ass in this regard, too. 

- This is why I don't think we can improve our lot in life while taking a generally socially conservative attitude.

- In what sense do you feel women are more victimised? All the stats I've seen have indicated men are significantly more likely to be victims of violent crime- http://nortonbooks.typepad.com/everydaysociology/2009/05/who-is-most-likely-to-be-a-crime-victim.html

- I guess it all ties into the idea of women being seen as inherently "weak" and men as inherently "strong". This can work in our favour, except when we actually need help. Similiarly, I should have mentioned homeless as one of the main men's issues.

Getting a bit more personal, I totally accept all this stuff, but I still find it extremely difficult to be open about these sorts of things. Then again, I can think of plenty of women who that is true about as well.

5 hours ago, karaddin said:

I think (and I'm not arguing with you that it's commonly perceived the way you said) that its much more accurate to say patriarchy helps men's power. Having power isn't good for an awful lot of men, being expected to have power and not is absolutely devastating to a lot. The word is integral to my feminism and its just as true here - its all about intersectionality, you can't divorce this shit from race, you can't divorce it from class. Patriarchy is a societal model designed (intentionally or not) to serve the men with wealth, the men with power, and to keep them there. It has the flow on effect at times of raising men of the same tier by other measures (ie same class, same race) above the women beside them, but that's a side effect and not the point, and it's double edged and cuts those men just as much as it serves them.

The thing is, this power is concentrated in men from a certain background. I know there are cultural differences, but in England, this power is pretty much all with men who speak and dress a certain way. It's pretty laughable to tell a boy on a council estate "people like you run the country" just because they're the same gender. I'm not sure they are outperforming the girls from the same background as them. Educationally, we have white working class boys performing worst out of any group (excluding travellers, though they are white too)- http://www.suttontrust.com/newsarchive/white-working-class-boys-have-lowest-gcse-grades-as-disadvantaged-bangladeshi-african-and-chinese-pupils-show-dramatically-improved-results/

and being told how privileged they are.

 

[butterbumps!]

7 hours ago, DunderMifflin said:

I'm just giving my opinion on specific identity politics.

Is it your understanding that everyone experiences marginalization/ discrimination/ violations of human rights in exactly the same way, degree and frequency as everyone else?

[mankytoes]

10 hours ago, Wrl6199 said:

I agree with you hear. I mean obviously there are issues that men do face but they obviously pale in comparison to the issues that women still face. But yeah I could see how a thread like this could be controversial in this community especially considering how liberal this site tends to lean.

I'm sure that comes from a genuine place, but that's exactly the sort of argument I don't like. It's a bit like people who always come into any feminist argument and go "your issues pale in comparison to those of women in Saudi Arabia". Or I've seen people argue whether black issues, gay issues or women's issues are most important. I don't think it's particularly helpful to try and rank what is most important. They're all important. To a guy who loses his children, it's important. To a guy freezing on the streets, it's important. To a guy who is suicidal and feels he has no support, it's important. I don't think we should sit here trying to work out if it's worse for a woman to get sexually harrassed by her boss, or a man to lose the right to see his children.