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

[PrettyPig]

21 hours ago, JEORDHl said:

That was just an example, but whether it's conscious or not, I think lots of men are fine with falling back on the societal norms that should've been put to bed with the model of the nuclear family. They just don't fit anymore.

My husband and I discussed this a while back  - it was in context of a topic that had recently been brought up by the bigwigs at my work:  in a pathetic attempt to improve corporate optics, these said bigwigs had been trying to steer more women into higher-level or executive positions, and they were quite confounded by some studies/tracking that showed a majority of female employees voluntarily 'topping out' at the middle-management level.  It was apparently very rare for a woman to even want to climb the ladder into these higher-level positions, and the bigwigs had no clue why.

In telling my husband about this, I said that of course the company was going to throw considerable dollars and research time into this issue instead of simply ASKING the women on the lower rungs of the ladder, "What's stopping you?" - the answer to which would undoubtedly be something in the vein of the burden of traditional gender roles in a family that creep into the workday.   Those societal norms that you reference are still in play, and that leads to the whole "Can women really have it all?" argument that I won't get into here.

Anyway, what came out of this discussion was the realization that the Millennials  - specifically, Millennial men - are really going to be the agents of change for this.   We can already see how this generation is changing the workforce in general with regard to results-focused work environments, flex time, etc, but they're also starting to dismantle those gender-based parenting concepts too  - the expectation that moms still do all the parenting "stuff" or shoulder the majority of the primary caregiver role even while holding jobs & having careers themselves is slowly (finally) going the way of the dodo.  Men are starting to shed that King of the Castle/Archie Bunker mentality that was passed down from the Boomers; these days more and more men are assuming these duties, and most importantly, they WANT to.   The overall involvement in their kids' lives is increasing - it's not limited to weekend baseball games and teaching Little Timmy to ride a bike like it was in earlier generations.  Dads are going to doctor's appts and school conferences, they're shopping for groceries and cooking, they're asking for parental leave to spend time with their new babies, they're stepping up and doing the things that moms/wives/partners previously would have been juggling mostly on their own. 

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. 

[Isalie]

Do schools obsess about gender? 

I don't really take gender into account, other than that I don't use girls as buffers for boys when I decide where they should sit. 

I'm sure there are many factors as to why boys are failing, and daily phys ed might be part of the solution, but I'd say that the biggest reason why boys fail is that school is so low on their list of priorities. You very rarely hear girls brag about not doing their homework or w/e.

I don't know, but I don't think you can teach a kid that the most important thing in life is success in sports, that it is very important to go your own way, that your opinion always matter and so on, and not expect it to influence that kid's ability to sit still, listen and work in a group for hours on end.

[Savannah]

1 hour ago, Mikael said:

Do schools obsess about gender? 

I don't really take gender into account, other than that I don't use girls as buffers for boys when I decide where they should sit. 

I'm sure there are many factors as to why boys are failing, and daily phys ed might be part of the solution, but I'd say that the biggest reason why boys fail is that school is so low on their list of priorities. You very rarely hear girls brag about not doing their homework or w/e.

I don't know, but I don't think you can teach a kid that the most important thing in life is success in sports, that it is very important to go your own way, that your opinion always matter and so on, and not expect it to influence that kid's ability to sit still, listen and work in a group for hours on end.

I don't see the problem. Sports activities support   cognitive performance. 

[Westerosi Coast Gangster]

woman deserve equal rights ( and lefts )

 

jk. love woman

[Isalie]

7 hours ago, Savannah said:

I don't see the problem. Sports activities support   cognitive performance. 

Sure, but sports = #1 priority combined with school = prison doesn't.

I have kids that spend 20+ hours on practice alone in 6th grade, and even though that's kind of extreme (but by no means a solitary case) the attitude that whatever sport it is the kid is doing is way more important than school, is not that uncommon.

[mankytoes]

18 hours ago, Jo498 said:

As for health, we do not need to rely on anecdotal evidence. There are some indubitable stats, e.g. that women's live expectancy in western countries is roughly 5 years higher than men's while the difference varies depending on social class/stratum. In Germany it is more than 10 years between rich women and poor men. A very common bottom line is, that it's men's fault anyway because they live unhealthily, don't "listen to their bodies", "cannot admit weakness" etc. And of course quite a bit is due to higher rates of substance abuse, risky behavior, homelessness etc. And work related injuries (about 90% of fatal work accidents happen to men - probably most were drunk, just kidding!). No gender quota in dangerous work as we all know and never complain (and of course we shouldn't, men ARE more expendable and should do the dangerous stuff).

I think "men's rights" are bs. The whole thing rests on the general mistake of "identity politics" instead of stressing equal rights and opportunities. But because everyone and their dog formed "identity" special interest groups and had some success, it is hardly surprising that men do so as well now.

Another main issue is the eternal confusion around equal rights, equal opportunity and equal outcomes. Equal rights for men/women are already the law in most countries in most contested fields. Equal societal outcomes are impossible and would be unjust because people are different and we are supposed to be some kind of meritocracy, in any cases the structures are such that some talents, some life choices etc. can and usually will be rewarded or leveraged to improportional advantages (in income, status, power etc.). I am very much in favor of laws (taxes, socialised medicine etc.) that dampen those advantages to get less unequal outcomes. But this should be done generally, not favoring some special groups for specious reasons. And it is poor methodology to claim that any unequal outcome must be grounded in unfair treatment. Or, is this is not detectable, some very subtle societal or structural unfairness. Especially if the obvious structural causes, namely that some talents and skills are in far higher demand, or that some poor choices, faults of character or medical/psychological issues are in certain circumstances "punished" more severely, are all but ignored in favor of hypothetical unfairnesses along the identity groupf fault lines.

Are we sure that women living longer isn't just a natural thing, down, at least partly, to biological issues? I mean I think it's a good way to show the problems with feminism though. If women lived shorter lives, I'm sure they would mention it endlessly. I've never heard feminists talk about this issue.

I don't think it has to come down to "identity politics", just understanding the reality that some issues effect some groups more than others. And that members of a group have a better understanding of issues that effect them. This is why I listed issues in the opening post, just to say to people "do these issues warrant particular attention?". And most people agree they do. I've had people say to me "why not support white rights then?". And if anyone can demonstrate to me white people do have issues as serious as the ones I've listed, I will support "white rights". I'm just not aware of these issues existing.

The trouble with just saying "I'm an egalitarian, I support equal rights for everyone" is that everyone says that. It's like saying "I believe in democracy", which everyone from the USA to North Korea says. No matter how socially conservative they are, I've never heard anyone say they don't believe in equal rights for women.

19 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

I think its a difficult one to judge though if you base abuse on how much physical damage someone is capable of doing to you with their fists. Would that mean that a small weak man hitting a big woman would be brushed off? 

I can also say personally that I've been in a couple of relationships where the women felt it was perfectly ok to throw punches and slaps at me if they were angry, and of course I would never do anything to physically harm them, but it is incredibly hard to keep your cool in those situations, I can imagine how easy it is to react once you are sitting there having blows aimed at you. 

Anyway, I think something that doesn't get brought up in conversations about domestic abuse is mental abuse. Men suffer this in a lot of relationships, I think mainly because women cannot use physical violence so use their words instead to inflict pain. I don't think men are particularly well equipped to deal with this.

It is difficult, the Ronda Rousey case is one where a women beat up her presumably weaker male partner. Now a lot of male fighters have committed domestic assault too, but I haven't seen any be as unrepentant as her.

I dunno. Domestic abuse of women is such a serious issue that I'm reluctant to turn away from the idea of "never hit a woman", it's something I was raised with, something that is important to me. Whether it leads to more violence against men, I don't know. Overall, I think society is best served by teaching men this. I know that might be a bit hypocritical if I'm going to say I support men's rights.

I don't want to teach men to hit women back, unless they are in serious danger, I want men and boys just to walk away. I've never been hit by a partner, luckily I've been with women who know that it isn't ok to do that. It's easier said than done, but everyone should see violence by their partner as completely unacceptable, and grounds for immediate separation.

Yeah, I mean the trouble with mental abuse is it's hard to quantify. When does a dominant partner become abusive? I know several guys whose partners are very controlling, they've shut them off from their families, things like that. I guess that is considered abusive, but it's hard to actually see them as "abused". On the other hand, I knew a guy at uni whose girlfriend made him put a tracker on his phone so she could follow wherever he went. Now that I consider mental abuse. They're married now.

[Jo498]

There might be a small biological factor concerning longevity but interestingly the live expectancies of monks and nuns are far closer together that of non-monastic persons. There are lots of factors in play here. What I wanted to point out is that there are a lot of things where men have it far worse on average than women and, as you realized, they get hardly mentioned at all. Stupid and toxic many of the MRA people might be they are IMO not wrong when they point out that today we have a curious mixture such that official policies of all western countries are blatantly feminist, always pointing at some benchmarks where supposedly "equality" is lacking but there is still a lot of traditional "chivalry" (aka positive prejudice) in place. I have never seen anyone campaigning for gender quota in the trash delivery or lumber businesses. It is usually only about a "glass ceiling" for women who belong to the economic top 5-10% anyway. Frankly, I couldn't care less. Actually I do care. Because this is another indication that one of the most important consequences of "identity politics" is to hide class differences and class warfare. It is usually not the intention but it is definitely the result. Issues that concern far more people and have a much larger impact economically are clouded in favor of a few, often extremely divisive "beacons" (And this is one of the many reasons why what passes for the "left" nowadays is failing and this will only become worse.)

I think the strain of the leftist/feminist movements that wanted to raise the value and respect given to "women's work" (homemaking, care of children, elderly, etc.) has failed utterly. Instead of a thorough reevaluation of the distribution of work and "life" between family and workplace, we fell completely into the dominant capitalist (and admittedly also socialist, I think the Soviet union had almost no gender gap in STEM, for example) model that the only "real work" is work for which you usually leave your home and get paid for in cash. The "solution" is to pull care out of the family into early nursery for children and elderly care, respectively, so that both men and women can work as much as possible. The ideal is that parents put their children into the care of other people ASAP, so they can work more. We usually don't even ask the question anymore if this is good for families. [We do not even question the economic efficiency. Sure, for a lawyer it might be a "waste" not to put their abilities to work and instead care for children. But we are not all highly qualified professionals. For a waitress or a deliveryman it is a different situation.] It is only haggling about women (or men) not being too long out or "real work" because they'd rather, God forbid, care for their own children. I don't know if the explosion of all kinds of mental and behavioral illnesses of young children, the boys failing in school etc. is related to such developments. Maybe it's rather environmental poisons or whatever.

[mormont]

2 minutes ago, Jo498 said:

What I wanted to point out is that there are a lot of things where men have it far worse on average than women and, as you realized, they get hardly mentioned at all.

I see them mentioned all the time. You can hardly have a discussion about feminism anywhere without these issues being brought up.

ps do you have your trash delivered? That seems like a niche market.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

1 hour ago, mankytoes said:

 

I don't want to teach men to hit women back, unless they are in serious danger, I want men and boys just to walk away. I've never been hit by a partner, luckily I've been with women who know that it isn't ok to do that. It's easier said than done, but everyone should see violence by their partner as completely unacceptable, and grounds for immediate separation.

Yeah, I mean the trouble with mental abuse is it's hard to quantify. When does a dominant partner become abusive? I know several guys whose partners are very controlling, they've shut them off from their families, things like that. I guess that is considered abusive, but it's hard to actually see them as "abused". On the other hand, I knew a guy at uni whose girlfriend made him put a tracker on his phone so she could follow wherever he went. Now that I consider mental abuse. They're married now.

I'm certainly not suggesting men hit back. My point is that domestic abuse is usually seen as 'men hit women', and anything in the reverse is either dismissed or viewed as comedy.

Recently there was a video on facebook of a woman beating seven hells out of her husband in the bathroom, it was like incredibly viscious and disturbing. Her anger and rage were quite something. But the disturbing thing was that the comments were mainly men and women laughing at it, saying 'wow he got hit bad!!' or ' what a pussy'. 

Its clear that both sexes are capable of horrendous abuse. As I say I've experienced it myself, women are certainly no angels. 

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. 

[Savannah]

6 hours ago, Mikael said:

Sure, but sports = #1 priority combined with school = prison doesn't.

I have kids that spend 20+ hours on practice alone in 6th grade, and even though that's kind of extreme (but by no means a solitary case) the attitude that whatever sport it is the kid is doing is way more important than school, is not that uncommon.

If you took sport away from them do you think that attitude towards school would change?

[Isalie]

10 minutes ago, Savannah said:

If you took sport away from them do you think that attitude towards school would change?

If society valued academic achievements higher than sports achievements I'm sure boys and girls would do better in school.

[Savannah]

7 minutes ago, Mikael said:

If society valued academic achievements higher than sports achievements I'm sure boys and girls would do better in school.

Or kids might not take the society's word for it and turn even more rebellious.

Even if, what's the society to decide on behalf or people what to value more? science, sports, art? People should get to decide for themselves. 

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

7 minutes ago, Mikael said:

If society valued academic achievements higher than sports achievements I'm sure boys and girls would do better in school.

But why do boys value academic achievements as lower value than girls do. I do find it interesting, and I think there are a lot of different factors contributing. 

I do think there is an element of the rebelliousness of adolescent boys, which is inherent and also encouraged. There is nothing cool or advantageous for them to just blindly follow rules set down for them, and many naturally feel the need to challenge authority. Being the kid who acts up and backchats and doesn't work hard has plenty of plus sides in terms of respect from other pupils and social standing. 

I think a 'one size fits all' approach to learning for young children is mostly a quite bad idea as everyone learns at different rates and in different ways. It could be that boys have already fallen behind in early years because the level is set to the way girls learn, which is a little more advanced initially. From that point you've already created a negative connection towards learning for boys and so they revert to what they are good at.. playing and sports.

 

[Savannah]

3 hours ago, mormont said:

 

ps do you have your trash delivered? That seems like a niche market.

That's one example of mental abuse that non native english speakers  face. 

Go ahead, I don't care. Just wanted to point out the hypocrisy. 

[Isalie]

37 minutes ago, Savannah said:

Or kids might not take the society's word for it and turn even more rebellious.

Even if, what's the society to decide on behalf or people what to value more? science, sports, art? People should get to decide for themselves. 

I did not suggest valueing academic prowess was better (though competetive sports has many drawbacks so maybe it would?), only that you cannot tell kids that athletic achievements is more important than everything else and still expect them to prioritze school.

[Jo498]

Again, rebelliousness is nothing new for adolescent boys (or girls). The interesting question is not the general one but why "boys left behind" is apparently a phenomenon of the last ca. 20 years. Of the list above, I think only these two points

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

- Education, where boys are consistently doing worse overall

could be framed as "men's rights". The first one is complicated and can be quite different depending on the country. It seems to be the case that in some situations fathers can be legally screwed and this should certainly be changed. But for me the core of this is not legal but moral/societal and the best thing would be to have far less failing marriages so the legal problems with custody etc. would not be so frequent.

Therefore the most important point is education and this is not really "men's rights" either because it mostly concerns underage boys. Children are vulnerable and it is wrong to use them as "battlefield" for feminist/masculist issues. So one has to be very careful here, especially because education has suffered from lots of experiments based on dubious research since almost 100 years or so (not that it was much better before, just without the pseudo-science based experiments).

For the other points below I don't quite see what could/should be changed. I don't know how widespread milder sentences for women are and I don't really care (I doubt that women are drawn into crime because they hope for lenient sentences). In any case this is usually not in the laws but in legal practice, probably differs a lot between countries and I have no idea how to change it. Basically, it is not something "against men" but positive discrimination of women (they are not held as accountable as men are). Addiction and health problems, up to suicidal tendencies are going to stay with us, especially if society remains as cruel and competitive as it is now (and we don't really want to change that). Some people need that stuff to cope and of course it will have consequences. Nothing where males should be specially cared for.

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

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

- Health, where men die younger and commit suicide more

[Xray the Enforcer]

4 hours ago, Jo498 said:

I have never seen anyone campaigning for gender quota in the trash [pickup] or lumber businesses.

Then you haven't been paying much attention to on-the-ground action. Those fights have been happening, but they do not get much media airtime. 

[Kalbear]

5 hours ago, Savannah said:

Or kids might not take the society's word for it and turn even more rebellious.

Even if, what's the society to decide on behalf or people what to value more? science, sports, art? People should get to decide for themselves. 

Sure, and that value has consequences. 

In other cultures valuing academic results ends up being successful for both boys and girls as a rule. Sports success is fine, but not nearly as ubiquitous - and other success in extracurriculars (such as music, arts, various intellectual hobbies) is given the same value. 

We have absurdly large amounts of evidence that if you emphasize achievement in academics that this will indeed result in better academic achievement. This isn't hard to figure out, and has nothing to do with boys being somehow less inclined for school. 

[Savannah]

5 hours ago, Mikael said:

I did not suggest valueing academic prowess was better (though competetive sports has many drawbacks so maybe it would?), only that you cannot tell kids that athletic achievements is more important than everything else and still expect them to prioritze school.

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. 

[mankytoes]

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. 

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.

12 hours ago, Jo498 said:

 It is usually only about a "glass ceiling" for women who belong to the economic top 5-10% anyway.

That is true. But they do have a point, women clearly aren't getting equal opportunities in a lot of professional fields. No, it isn't that important overall, but it's important to them. We should all learn from that, most people will always see discrimination that effects them first. Don't expect everyone else to stand up for you, stand up for yourself.