# Honest gender studies



## Ibanezsam4 (Jan 17, 2014)

so a friend of mine posted an article from the website avoiceformen.com and i was blown away by the content. basically its a bunch of men and women finally breaking the silence on what has been wrong with feminism for the past couple of decades; specifically on the topics of rape culture, reproductive rights and advocacy. 

now i never was a fan of modern feminism, simply because i never believed gender was 100% a social construction; i do believe a lot of gender is biological and there are tons of differences between the sexes than just genitalia. 

but its hard to say this at a university (liberal arts campus) and not in a science classroom (was a communication major) and not get hated on by every professor/moronic young woman in the room (i still wanted to get laid). 

i honestly wish i had known about this website before, and maybe i would've spoken out more... maybe. regardless: take a look and read some of the articles, i think it would be nice to have an honest discussion of gender on this board... who knows? maybe little talks like this will be the catalyst for finally overturning all the negative effects of feminism throughout the past 30 years.


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## Konfyouzd (Jan 17, 2014)




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## Randy (Jan 17, 2014)

Decidedly less than unbiased domain name they picked, there. 

I'll have to dig in later and get back to you.


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## TemjinStrife (Jan 17, 2014)




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## Necris (Jan 17, 2014)

Am I living in an Onion article?

"Area man finds website which provides ideological feedback loop he's been searching for."


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## Devyn Eclipse Nav (Jan 17, 2014)

The way I see it, if you're not a fan of modern feminism, you must not actually know what feminism is.

And when a website is looking for a "clever meme maker" (the term you're looking for is Macro, people) and uses a headline that goes "Michael Flood is a cheap, lying whore. So's Tony Shepherd" it's a bit hard for me to take it seriously.

Is feminism flawed? Yes, as is EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE WORLD. There are psychos out there drugging themselves, having sex with guys, and then saying they were raped, "because all men sux lol," and then calling themselves feminists. They are not. Anybody that pulls shit like that and then calls themselves a feminist is not.

There is nothing wrong with /proper/ feminism, which in all reality, is just wanting equal rights for both genders. And EVERYBODY can benefit from feminism, not just women. It means you might not have to stop your girlfriend from killing herself because she's been told she's ugly and fat and worthless (when she's not any of that). It means when your sister is taken into the hospital by her boyfriend for horrid stomach pain, they won't just assume "Oh she probably tried a home abortion" and then let her sit in a room to suffer. It means that people won't even CONSIDER home abortions. It means that you won't have to tell your daughter that she can't go out alone because "You might get raped"

The entire world can benefit from proper feminism, and if you don't agree, you've clearly never bothered to learn what it actually is.


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## JoshuaVonFlash (Jan 17, 2014)

Zeno said:


> It means that you won't have to tell your daughter that she can't go out alone because "You might get raped"


I agree with everything you said but that last part, equality won't stop men from raping women. It's more a physical/psychological dominance thing. (at least for some) It may stop rapes for "religious" reasons, but it won't stop lunatics from doing it.


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## Devyn Eclipse Nav (Jan 17, 2014)

Yeah, that wasn't the best example looking back. HOWEVER, it will mean that, god forbid it does happen, people won't ask what she was wearing, saying she was "asking for it" if it was something a teeny bit revealing.


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## JoshuaVonFlash (Jan 17, 2014)

Zeno said:


> Yeah, that wasn't the best example looking back. HOWEVER, it will mean that, god forbid it does happen, people won't ask what she was wearing, saying she was "asking for it" if it was something a teeny bit revealing.


Hopefully that's coming soon.


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## darren (Jan 17, 2014)

Necris said:


> Am I living in an Onion article?
> 
> "Area man finds website which provides ideological feedback loop he's been searching for."







Zeno said:


> The way I see it, if you're not a fan of modern feminism, you must not actually know what feminism is.



And this. Very much this. 

I'm astounded at the short memory and short attention span of the generation of young adults coming up through college and university these days. Absolutely no sense of history or even events that happened from 1970 to 1990. There's being "idealistic", and then there's being completely ignorant. Things like a "men's rights" website are very much the latter, and nothing new. Unenlightened males have been trying to get traction with that idea for over 20 years, and it fails every time, because it's an absolutely ludicrous idea. 

Imagine making a website that's about "white rights" and saying that the power imbalance created by centuries of racism was overblown, and largely a product of anti-racist propaganda. Yeah. Doesn't work, does it?


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## AngstRiddenDreams (Jan 18, 2014)

^


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## MrPepperoniNipples (Jan 18, 2014)

Zeno said:


> The way I see it, if you're not a fan of modern feminism, you must not actually know what feminism is.



I don't think it's feminism that people have a problem with, it's the feminists




"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

"In fact, there is nothing wrong with Christianity ... The trouble is with you Christians. You do not begin to live up to your own teachings."

A couple quotes from Gandhi that I think can also be applied to the modern day "feminist"


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## Murmel (Jan 18, 2014)

You're generalising. In my experience, such feminists are the vocal minority. More 'regular' feminists don't speak up as much. And because a regular doesn't have as extreme opinions, they aren't noticed as much either.


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## lemniscate (Jan 18, 2014)

If we were all equal, we'd be all hermaphroditic and have the same skin pigmentation, among other things.


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## darren (Jan 18, 2014)




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## Jakke (Jan 18, 2014)

AVFM is interesting, and in part because of the gut-reaction it instills in people to mock them, that they "just be hatin'", are scum living in hteir mother's basement, that they couldn't get laid even if they paid for it, or that they are deficient in the male anatomy.

There is absolutely a problem in how feminists can dominate (let's not kid ourselves, of course they do) the public discourse, but at the same time be the most (self-proclaimed) awfully discriminated against minority. We have biases that leads us to view women as better and more valuable as men (the women are wonderful effect), and research show that the more women there are in a workplace, the more equal people perceive it to be (that is, 56% women is more equal than 52%). I think it is important to shed light on this, as feminism's patriarchy theory seems to be projection than anything else, but at the same time something that influences public policy.

I also think many MRA:s react to a percieved shunning by moderate feminists, as they tend to follow the famous quote "You are either a feminist or a bigot, there is no middle-ground"; and see an adherence to feminist dogma as the smell-test of a decent person. Instead it's of course one of many ideologies regarding gender-dynamics, and there is nothing more inherently true tabout than is in liberalism.

Now, that being said, I will have to put in the general 
disclaimer in that there are deranged MRA:s, and you therefore shouldn't take everything said by an MRA as truth by virtue of it being said by an MRA. If they provide sources (which they to their credit often do), that's another thing entirely.


I wanted to adress this post though:


Zeno said:


> The way I see it, if you're not a fan of modern feminism, you must not actually know what feminism is.



As does creationists say about creationism. If you are going to pull out the card of "you just don't get it", then you will have to define what is not getting got.




Zeno said:


> Is feminism flawed? Yes, as is EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE WORLD. There are psychos out there drugging themselves, having sex with guys, and then saying they were raped, "because all men sux lol," and then calling themselves feminists. They are not. Anybody that pulls shit like that and then calls themselves a feminist is not.



This is literally the only (and best) flaw about feminism you could find racking all of your brain? Also, the no-true scottsman fallacy.



Zeno said:


> There is nothing wrong with /proper/ feminism, which in all reality, is just wanting equal rights for both genders.



No, feminism is an -ism, which means that there is a unifying ideology. "Equal rights for both genders" (such as women's health research starting to get funded at the much lower level that is men's health funding, or women having to serve the same prison sentences as men) is far too undefined to be a uniting dogma behind an -ism




Zeno said:


> And EVERYBODY can benefit from feminism, not just women.



And how do you support this claim?



Zeno said:


> It means you might not have to stop your girlfriend from killing herself because she's been told she's ugly and fat and worthless (when she's not any of that).



Hyperbole and a fallacious appeal to emotion. Also, non-sequitur as .....




Zeno said:


> It means when your sister is taken into the hospital by her boyfriend for horrid stomach pain, they won't just assume "Oh she probably tried a home abortion" and then let her sit in a room to suffer.
> It means that people won't even CONSIDER home abortions.



Do you live in the world of Dirty Dancing?




Zeno said:


> It means that you won't have to tell your daughter that she can't go out alone because "You might get raped"



Is there no justice system where you live? Assault rapes are also an extremely small part of all of the collected rape, using assault rape as representative of the state of rape these days is dishonest.




Zeno said:


> The entire world can benefit from proper feminism, and if you don't agree, you've clearly never bothered to learn what it actually is.




Again, how do you support this assertion? If I would shout about how the world would benefit more from conservatism, everyone would go "cool, that's your political opinion, what particular aspects of conservatism is it that you would see a benefit in implementing all over the world?".


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## Murmel (Jan 18, 2014)

Zeno said:


> It means that you won't have to tell your daughter that she can't go out alone because "You might get raped"





Jakke said:


> Is there no justice system where you live? Assault rapes are also an extremely small part of all of the collected rape, using assault rape as representative of the state of rape these days is dishonest.


A justice system doesn't by default prevent rapes and give fair trials. Just look at all the ridiculous cases that have come to light as of late in our own country.

Sexual harassment against women is a real issue, and there is just no way to argue against it. Never in my entire life have I been sexually harassed, but I've seen first hand how my friends have out in public during broad daylight.
Some like to argue that 'boys will be boys' or that they need to live out their sexuality otherwise they get blue balls/whatever. It's just stupid.


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## Jakke (Jan 18, 2014)

Murmel said:


> A justice system doesn't by default prevent rapes and give fair trials. Just look at all the ridiculous cases that have come to light as of late in our own country.



Oh? You mean the individual cases cherrypicked out of a thousand to prove a point? People die from complications from medical procedures quite often, but to compare that with the millions of successful medical procedures to try and blame medicine itself is ridiculous.

There is a margin of error in everything we do, and that margin of error does not have to mean anything else than it is just a margin of error.



Murmel said:


> Sexual harassment against women is a real issue, and there is just no way to argue against it. Never in my entire life have I been sexually harassed, but I've seen first hand how my friends have out in public during broad daylight.
> Some like to argue that 'boys will be boys' or that they need to live out their sexuality otherwise they get blue balls/whatever. It's just stupid.



And I have never met a woman who've been subjected to the "rampant sexual harrassment" that feminists claim exists. Which of our anecdotes are true?

-None, because they are anecdotes.

Lastly, you cannot use the stupidity of elements of a society as indicative of the society itself. The now defunct forum RadFemHub wanted to murder baby boys and castrate men, by the same logic as you just employed, I can extrapolate that to be indicative of the attidtudes of feminists in general.


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## Murmel (Jan 18, 2014)

A justice system still doesn't prevent rape, it's not like there's a cop on every corner.



Jakke said:


> And I have never met a woman who've been subjected to the "rampant sexual harrassment" that feminists claim exists. Which of our anecdotes are true?



I don't know what you regard as 'rampant sexual harassment', but if getting groped by random people or having those guys on the other side of the street holler at you while walking home doesn't qualify for harassment, then I don't know what does.



Jakke said:


> The new defunkt forum RadFemHub wanted to murder baby boys and castrate men, by the same logic as you just employed, I can extrapolate that to be the intention of all feminists.


How is this even remotely the same thing as what I said? I never claimed that all men are pigs, neither did I claim that everyone agrees with 'boys will be boys'.


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## Jakke (Jan 18, 2014)

Murmel said:


> A justice system still doesn't prevent rape, it's not like there's a cop on every corner.



No, but a justice system has a deterring effect on those who are not hardened criminals. A hardened criminal will not really care about the "teach your sons (forgetting that in the most common forms of rape, the perpetration has gender symmetry) not to rape"-bullshit either.



Murmel said:


> I don't know what you regard as 'rampant sexual harassment', but if getting groped by random people or having those guys on the other side of the street holler at you while walking home doesn't qualify for harassment, then I don't know what does.
> [/QUOTE[
> 
> I hear these stories all the time, and I have yet to meet someone actually being catcalled from across the street, or being groped. Ig someone is sexually harassed, I think they should call the police. If you don't, that does not really help your case to get sympathy.
> ...


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## Murmel (Jan 18, 2014)

Jakke said:


> I hear these stories all the time, and I have yet to meet someone actually being catcalled from across the street, or being groped. Ig someone is sexually harassed, I think they should call the police. If you don't, that does not really help your case to get sympathy.


About 2 years ago, me and my class were out playing softball. A group of guys walk past the field we're at and call out a girl in front of 20+ people.
Walking with another friend of mine, the same thing happens, 50m outside the city centre. I was there right be her side the whole time, she clearly wasn't alone.

These aren't anecdotes, they are things that actually happen if you live what we would regard as a 'normal' lifestyle. Going out socializing with friends in public places etc. If you're more of a homey person that doesn't get out much, of course the odds of it happening are much slimmer.
I'm not saying there's something wrong with either, one of the reasons I despise going out on weekends is because of all the assholery happening.
As a male, it can be tough to see these things if you don't look for them, because they usually go under the radar for potiential surroundings.

I do however agree that you should report it to the police. I will also say that I can understand the fear of doing so. Having been part of a police investigation myself (as a witness) I can say that is was definitely not a pleasant experience.



Jakke said:


> Because you obviously think it is indicative in some way of our larger culture, i.e. you draw conclusions about a society based on a small subsection of it, just as I did.
> I pointed out that that would be an incorrect assumption to make.


I never drew conclusions about society as a whole. I said 'some'. Not most, all, the majority, -insert word indicating a large number of people-.

Let's put it this way, the vast majority of people (from what I've experienced) would disagree with the notion that men have to engage women in an inappropriate manner because it's the way they're wired.


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## Jakke (Jan 18, 2014)

Murmel said:


> About 2 years ago, me and my class were out playing softball. A group of guys walk past the field we're at and call out a girl in front of 20+ people.
> Walking with another friend of mine, the same thing happens, 50m outside the city centre. I was there right be her side the whole time, she clearly wasn't alone.
> 
> These aren't anecdotes, they are things that actually happen if you live what we would regard as a 'normal' lifestyle. Going out socializing with friends etc. If you're more of a homey person that doesn't get out much, of course the odds of it happening are much slimmer.
> ...



Of course they are anecdotes, as I don't see any stastical sample or analysis.

I can counter with that I am out several times every week at bars, or just hanging out, and I have never seen that happen to female friends I'm with, or any female we are around*. I also live in a significantly larger city than you do, so statistically, I should see a lot more. I do like how you implied that I must not see them because of me being male though, that was a nice touch.


*Do you see the problem with using anecdotes as indicative of the state of society?




Murmel said:


> I do however agree that you should report it to the police. I will also say that I can understand the fear of doing so. Having been part of a police investigation myself (as a witness) I can say that is was definitely not a pleasant experience.



And my dealings with the police have been quite pleasant. If you do not report to the police what has happened to you, you lose the right to play out the victim card.



Murmel said:


> I never drew conclusions about society as a whole. I said 'some'. Not most, all, the majority, -insert word indicating a large number of people.
> 
> Let's put it this way, the vast majority of people (from what I've experienced) would disagree with the notion that men have to engage women in an inappropriate manner because it's the way they're wired.



Well, if you didn't use it as an example of how society is, why in that case bring it up? I can go on about how some people like to shove needles into their genitalia, but is it really relevant to talk about what *some *people do when it says nothing about society in general?

I also would not agree that there is a way of engagement that is inappropriate all the time, it has of course always to do with what the context is and whom the person is.


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## thraxil (Jan 18, 2014)

"It is estimated that 1 in 3 American women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime" according to a George Mason University study (Worldwide Sexual Assault Statistics)

It's hardly anecdotal.

I haven't found statistics on sexual assault convictions, but I'd be pretty surprised if they're anywhere close to 1 in 3 men. That means that there's either a couple dudes out there going around sexually assaulting millions of women each, or the justice system isn't working.

Most go unreported to the police because women understand that whether we like it or not, there is still a severe stigma attached to being a rape victim.


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## troyguitar (Jan 18, 2014)

Just as many men are assaulted, the only difference is it usually isn't considered sexual.

It has nothing to do with women... the fact is that men are aggressive and are likely to assault everyone.

I'm a small introverted guy and even I have been yelled at across the street and physically assaulted before. So what? I don't go on and on about "men's rights" as a result.


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## Jakke (Jan 18, 2014)

thraxil said:


> "It is estimated that 1 in 3 American women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime" according to a George Mason University study (Worldwide Sexual Assault Statistics)
> 
> It's hardly anecdotal.



I'd love to check it out, but I can't find the actual reference on the site referenced. Have you been able to navigate that poorly constructed website?



thraxil said:


> I haven't found statistics on sexual assault convictions, but I'd be pretty surprised if they're anywhere close to 1 in 3 men. That means that there's either a couple dudes out there going around sexually assaulting millions of women each, or the justice system isn't working.



I have a couple of thoughts:
1. Sexual harassment is not the same thing as sexual assault. These kinds of studies often regard any kind of unwanted sexual behaviour as assault, regardless of any emotional fallout, or actual damage done (which in that case equates cat-calls to rape). I will have to read the methodology of the study though.
2. Of course there is a minority of people committing this! We call those people criminals.
3. That is a false dichotomy. There are other explanations than that either this select group of what pretty much is The Fantastic Harassers (worst superheroes ever, or best, in a nasty and ironic way) go around harassing all these women, or that the system lets all the harassers go free. 
4. The justice system works on presumption of innocence, which means that if the only evidence of a crime is a story, and word stands against word, most courts will dismiss the case due to lack of evidence. I would instead say that this is an indication that the system *works*. I would rather let the occasional guilty person go because lack of evidence than convict an innocent person under the same premise.



I have also encountered wordings in studies about rape similar to "have you ever engaged in sexual activites when you did not want to*", so until I have the data before me, I'd take this with a grain of salt.

*Consent does not take into account if you want something, just if you consent to do it. I may not like to pay interest on my loan, but I still have consented to doing it.



thraxil said:


> Most go unreported to the police because women understand that whether we like it or not, there is still a severe stigma attached to being a rape victim.



Source to empirical data plz. 
I can also add the anecdote that I have not seen any crime victim more supported than female victims of any sort of sexual crime.


Another common problem in these studies is that they do not ask the same questions to men and women, but instead they ask women about their victimization, and men about how they victimize. This does of course hide male victims and female perpetrators. 
Erin Pizzey (a women's right advocate who opened one of the first shelters for battered women in the UK) noted very early in her advocacy that many (if not most, if I recall correctly) of the women she sheltered were just as violent as the men they had left. Speaking about this has earned her death threats and boycotts ever since, which culminated in the killing of the family dog.

She does however also write for A Voice for Men, so I'm sure that that well will be poisoned pretty soon


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## thraxil (Jan 18, 2014)

Jakke said:


> I'd love to check it out, but I can't find the actual reference on the site referenced. Have you been able to navigate that poorly constructed website?



Scribd is just a site for displaying documents like PDFs in the browser. That document was published by GMU as a summary of statistics from other studies. Sorry for my poor wording. Rape and sexual violence statistics are not hard to come by.



Jakke said:


> I have a couple of thoughts:
> 1. Sexual harassment is not the same thing as sexual assault. These kinds of studies often regard any kind of unwanted sexual behaviour as assault, regardless of any emotional fallout, or actual damage done (which in that case equates cat-calls to rape). I will have to read the methodology of the study though.



Yes, you do have to be careful about the definitions involved as many sources of statistics use slightly different ones. The U.S Bureau of Justice Statistics defines rape as penetration by the offender and under that definition more than 25% of college age US women report having experienced a rape or rape attempt since age 14 (Rape statistics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).

This article seems to be the source of the 25% figure: Koss, M.P., Gidycz C.J. and Wisniewski, N. "The Scope of Rape: Incidence and Prevalence of Sexual Aggression and Victimization Among a National Sample of Students in Higher Education. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 55 (1987): 162-70.

The study very clearly uses the legal definition of rape.

This one is available online: publications publication-detail

It looks specifically at higher education and is very concerned with categorizing different types and levels of sexual victimization. Again, though, it finds that "Over the course of a college career--which now lasts an average of 5 years--the percentage of completed or attempted rape victimization among women in higher educational institutions might climb to between one-fifth and one-quarter."

Everyone agrees that it's hard to put a specific number on the problem, but anyone who's spent a little bit of time looking at the research can clearly see that it's a significant percentage of women who have been the victims of *serious* sexual violence. Even the CDC considers sexual violence "a significant problem in the United States" (Sexual Violence Home Page||CDC). It's not a difficult leap from there to infer that sexual harassment, by whatever reasonable definition you like, is even more widespread.



Jakke said:


> 4. The justice system works on presumption of innocence, which means that if the only evidence of a crime is a story, and word stands against word, most courts will dismiss the case due to lack of evidence. I would instead say that this is an indication that the system works. I would rather let the occasional guilty person go because lack of evidence than convict an innocent person under the same premise.



According to the same Rape Statistics Wikipedia page linked to above, "Factoring in unreported rapes, about 5% of rapists will ever spend a day in jail". 

So, there's the system "working". I don't disagree with the fundamental idea of presumption of innocence, but I don't think that 95% of rapists going completely free to continue doing what they're doing is something we should be proud of as a nation.


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## AxeHappy (Jan 18, 2014)

As a man who has been raped, by a woman, been in a horrible abusive relationship and is pretty anti-feminism as practised in the modern world (which is *not* about equal rights for both genders. What a ludircious claim), I am going to say:

Jakke, you are talking a load of shit. All of your argumentation has been anecdotal whilst asking for hard data. You are also arguing from a strong position of confirmation bais. In fact there are plenty of fallcies commited in all of your posts. Even a posioned well which you mocked.

Femenism is bullshit. 

Women are horrible opressed around the world. Even our fancy developed world.

Social justice is far more important than the nubelous concept of, "equality."


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## Mik3D23 (Jan 18, 2014)

Steubenville High School rape case - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A group of guys raped a girl while she was passed out and took/distributed pictures of it while they and others made jokes about it (such as "she was deader than Caylee Anthony"). The town and the media tried to make the two guys out as the victims, having their "promising futures" ruined. They received 1 and 2 years in juvenile detention each. That doesn't sound like justice to me..

This is a pretty prime and recent example of the stigma of our country against rape victims. If I remember correctly when it was happening, the victim and her family received threats and various insults because they were so outraged that two star football players could have their futures ruined. 

On the other side of things; yes there are tons of feminists that I cannot stand. In many parts of our country and legal system there is lots of bias toward women built into it. Such as a natural inclination to assume women as the victims (not just in rape cases, mind you). I don't think there's many things that the legal system does a good job of solving. Problems like rape/domestic violence and other social crimes are largely a byproduct of society and a person's upbringing. I think it's all too easy in our modern world to point the finger, and I think a majority of people just forget about things once a person is sentenced and put away like that's the end of the issue; We are all responsible for much of the crimes committed, and a lot of people (especially my generation) are happy leading a philosophy of complacence, ignorance, and the "it's not my problem so I don't care" mentality.

Anyway, sorry for the ranting.


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## Ibanezsam4 (Jan 19, 2014)

i have work in ten minutes but i'll leave this here.... 

More men raped in US than women when including prison sexual abuse | Mail Online 

sexual violence is a problem, but what are deciding to talk about? i dont condone sexual violence against any person, but the fact that a lot of our society ignores the rate of sexual assault on males is appalling.


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## Jakke (Jan 19, 2014)

thraxil said:


> Scribd is just a site for displaying documents like PDFs in the browser. That document was published by GMU as a summary of statistics from other studies. Sorry for my poor wording. Rape and sexual violence statistics are not hard to come by.



Good ones are



thraxil said:


> Yes, you do have to be careful about the definitions involved as many sources of statistics use slightly different ones. The U.S Bureau of Justice Statistics defines rape as penetration by the offender and under that definition more than 25% of college age US women report having experienced a rape or rape attempt since age 14 (Rape statistics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).
> 
> This article seems to be the source of the 25% figure: Koss, M.P., Gidycz C.J. and Wisniewski, N. "The Scope of Rape: Incidence and Prevalence of Sexual Aggression and Victimization Among a National Sample of Students in Higher Education. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 55 (1987): 162-70.
> 
> ...



And now I've taken the time to look at it. I have to say that I am impressed by the methodology, but there are some issues people should be aware of:
1. They invited self-selection bias. Do you recall how they made the interviews?
- They made them by phone. Do you have a habit of answering phone surverys when they call you? Of course not, no one has, *unless* you have a special interest in what they ask about... Maybe if you have been sexually victimized... They used a random sample to call, which is great, but there is still quite a large self-selection bias possible.

2. The girls theselves did not define a lot of what has happened as rape. It might sting a bit for people, but if the person subject to it does not define rape-like behaviour as a rape, then no rape has happened. This actually cuts the optimistic 25% almost in half. It is however not the researchers' place to define when a rape has happened, only the person subjected to one can do that.

3. There are problematic wordings in the questions like:
"Since school began in fall 1996, has anyone made or tried to make you have sexual intercourse or sexual contact when you did not want to by making promises of rewards, such as raising a grade, being hired or promoted, being given a ride or class notes, or getting help with coursework from a fellow student if you complied sexually?"

Does that mean that someone using sex to make a partner do something is a rapist?

and


"Since school began in fall 1996, has anyone made or tried to make you have sexual intercourse or sexual contact when you did not want to by simply being overwhelmed by someone's continual pestering and verbal pressure?"

Included here is of course a boyfriend persuading a girlfriend to "put up" when she did not feel like it. Congratulations dude, you are now a rapist according to these researchers.

There is also the wording that I have pointed out earlier of "when you did not want to".





thraxil said:


> Everyone agrees that it's hard to put a specific number on the problem, but anyone who's spent a little bit of time looking at the research can clearly see that it's a significant percentage of women who have been the victims of *serious* sexual violence. Even the CDC considers sexual violence "a significant problem in the United States" (Sexual Violence Home Page||CDC). It's not a difficult leap from there to infer that sexual harassment, by whatever reasonable definition you like, is even more widespread.




Yes, I would also say that the lesser crime probably is more prevalent than the more serious crime.



thraxil said:


> So, there's the system "working". I don't disagree with the fundamental idea of presumption of innocence, but I don't think that 95% of rapists going completely free to continue doing what they're doing is something we should be proud of as a nation.



Well, I would first need sources that anyone who ever engages in a rape-like behaviour will offend again. I would also need research without these issues to determine how large our rapist population reasonably is.

Furthermore, how the heck are you going to convict more without going away from the presumption of innocence? (I do like to hear ideas on solutions, and not just people complaining).




AxeHappy said:


> As a man who has been raped, by a woman, been in a horrible abusive relationship and is pretty anti-feminism as practised in the modern world (which is *not* about equal rights for both genders. What a ludircious claim), I am going to say:
> 
> Jakke, you are talking a load of shit. All of your argumentation has been anecdotal whilst asking for hard data. You are also arguing from a strong position of confirmation bais. In fact there are plenty of fallcies commited in all of your posts. Even a posioned well which you mocked.



That was surprising, would you mind pointing them fallacies out?

If I have offered anecdotes, I have been clear in pointing them out as anecdotes (I believe I have at least). What confirmation bias do I argue from? What well did I poison?

It would be great to get to know it, because then I can edit it out of my posts.

I would also caution you that there is something called "the fallacy fallacy", where you take some's argument only by virtue of how it is being argued, and not on the content itself. I would say that you are threading dangerously close to that right now.



AxeHappy said:


> Women are horrible opressed around the world. Even our fancy developed world.



Define oppression.



AxeHappy said:


> Social justice is far more important than the nubelous concept of, "equality."



I have not actually seen that there is much of a difference between the two. What is your definition of social justice vs. equality?


Also, looking closer on this:


AxeHappy said:


> As a man who has been raped, by a woman, been in a horrible abusive relationship and is pretty anti-feminism as practised in the modern world (which is *not* about equal rights for both genders. What a ludircious claim)



Argument from authority


----------



## darren (Jan 19, 2014)

How would i define oppression? Let's see:


Women gang-raped  in public places  in India.

Women in Saudi Arabia being forbidden to drive. 

A teenaged girl in Pakistan shot in the head for being an advocate of education for girls.

Women account for two thirds of the world's illiterate adults.

Only 11 out of 192 heads of government worldwide are women.

Women in the USA only earn, on average, 77% of what men earn.
You know just to name a few examples of inequality around the world.

Here's a good report. Read it and be a little less ignorant:

The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs  The World's Women 2010; Trends and Statistics

If you think gender discrimination and inequality is somehow imaginary, you're living in a fantasy world.


----------



## SD83 (Jan 19, 2014)

Jakke said:


> "Since school began in fall 1996, has anyone made or tried to make you have sexual intercourse or sexual contact when you did not want to by simply being overwhelmed by someone's continual pestering and verbal pressure?"
> 
> Included here is of course a boyfriend persuading a girlfriend to "put up" when she did not feel like it. Congratulations dude, you are now a rapist according to these researchers.



There is a huge difference between "persuading" and "overwhelming verbal pressure". If someone doesn't want to ...., he/she doesn't want to. One might ask if they won't reconsider, but if you can't accept a clear "no" and go on bother your partner then yes, you are an asshole. I don't care for the legal definition, but "violence", to me, doesn't necessary mean physical violence. And yes, I do think that it is a huge problem that this kind of behaviour is still considered more or less "OK" by society. I never had a girlfriend as far as I know who didn't go through this on a more or less regular basis with at least one of her ex, keeping quiet as that was "just the way things are". I have yet to see this kind of behaviour with a woman being the "aggressor" or however you want to call it.

And as for the sexual harassment part... as a barkeeper, I have seen this on pretty much any party I worked at or attended as a guest. Metal, reggae, minimal techno, there are always a handful of guys groping the girls. And if groping a random stranger on the ass or tits doesn't count as sexual harassment, what does? As a good looking female, without any male by your side, you're basically considered fair game in that context by a lot of people. Sure, there are women who seem to enjoy that kind of attention, but most don't, at least from what I've heard. I have yet to see this behaviour with a woman as the "aggressor" or however you want to call it.


----------



## Jakke (Jan 19, 2014)

darren said:


> How would i define oppression? Let's see:
> 
> 
> Women gang-raped &#8211; in public places &#8211; in India.
> ...




Then take it up with them. 




darren said:


> Women account for two thirds of the world's illiterate adults.




Take it up with the head of state where this is relevant. In our part of the world, women are the majority of university students, but still get women-only scholarships and preferential treatment when applying to university.





darren said:


> Only 11 out of 192 heads of government worldwide are women.




How do you intend to prove that this is due to discrimination? I think you might be confusing correlation with causation. Men take their lives at a significantly higher rate than women, and most relationships are heterosexual, that does not mean that women cause suicide in men.





darren said:


> Women in the USA only earn, on average, 77% of what men earn.




This is a factoid, when accounting for hours worked, the distance to the work traveled, amount overtime, amount of sick days taken, amount of dangerous or inconvenient hours worked, and due to the fact that men do not get pregnant, men and women earn the same amount of money. In fact, it is illegal to discriminate in the US based on gender in wages. If you are being discriminated against, take it to court.





darren said:


> Here's a good report. Read it and be a little less ignorant:
> 
> The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs &#8211; The World's Women 2010; Trends and Statistics
> 
> If you think gender discrimination and inequality is somehow imaginary, you're living in a fantasy world.



You seems to keep believing that what happens to someone in Somalia influences what happens to a privileged person in the US. I wouldn't recommend that you keep going on about how "ignorant" I am.

I also think that you are trying to strawman me, in that I don't accept that there are issues facing women worldwide (which is obviously bullshit). What I do not accept without evidence is that this is due to a lack of feminism, or that the boogiemen of feminism are to blame. I also do not accept that how women are treated in the Congo says anything about how they are treated in the US or Europe.




SD83 said:


> There is a huge difference between "persuading" and "overwhelming verbal pressure". If someone doesn't want to ...., he/she doesn't want to. One might ask if they won't reconsider, but if you can't accept a clear "no" and go on bother your partner then yes, you are an asshole.



That's a great distinction, and it was not included in the study, thus allowing each respondent to interpret what "overwhelming verbal pressure means".




SD83 said:


> *I don't care for the legal definition*, but "violence", to me, doesn't necessary mean physical violence.



Neither do I, but primarily because the FBI only recognizes penetrative sex as rape, which hides most of the male victims, and most of the female perpetrators.


Also yes again, there is something called "verbal abuse"



SD83 said:


> And yes, I do think that it is a huge problem that this kind of behaviour is still considered more or less "OK" by society. I never had a girlfriend as far as I know who didn't go through this on a more or less regular basis with at least one of her ex, keeping quiet as that was "just the way things are". I have yet to see this kind of behaviour with a woman being the "aggressor" or however you want to call it.



Is it though? Do you have anything to back that up with? Isn't the normal course that both men and women come running to a woman's aid as soon as she calls out?




SD83 said:


> And as for the sexual harassment part... as a barkeeper, I have seen this on pretty much any party I worked at or attended as a guest. Metal, reggae, minimal techno, there are always a handful of guys groping the girls.



Groping? That is a crime, and it's your duty in that case as a witness to call the police or security.



SD83 said:


> And if groping a random stranger on the ass or tits doesn't count as sexual harassment, what does?



That is exactly what it does.



SD83 said:


> As a good looking female, without any male by your side, you're basically considered fair game in that context by a lot of people.



As long as we are in on the personal, I have never encountered a man who would consider her "fair game" in anything other than strinking up a conversation with and maybe trying to pick her up. Now, if she is uninterested in that, she has a personal responibility to let that be known.



SD83 said:


> Sure, there are women who seem to enjoy that kind of attention, but most don't, at least from what I've heard. I have yet to see this behaviour with a woman as the "aggressor" or however you want to call it.



Well, they wouldn't be, as women generally don't need to pick up men.


----------



## AxeHappy (Jan 19, 2014)

In response to Jakke:

1) I would lovr too, but I only have access to a mobile phone and it's just not worth the effort. Just like formatting your quote would have been too much work.

2) You are arguing fromna strong bias of females not being oppressed or having any issues with sexual assualt (based of your own experience...) and then completely discounting all the presented evidence (scientific studies in this case) that would disprove your claim. 

3) You poisioned thed well of the study someone posted by, instead of attacking the study, but rather attacking the layout of the website. As if that has any bearing whatsoever on the study.

4) Define oppression? Get ....ed man, hit up Google or any dictionary.

5) Justice versus equality, this is a small example of the differences:








6) Argument from Authority? What? You can't say I was attempting to set myself up as an authority and than reference myself as proof of my argument as I never referenced myself as a source of proof? 

You could argue appeal to emotion fairly strongly if I had used the statement to prove a point, however it was used to explain my mindset and not as proof of any argument or claim and thusly is not an appeal to anything nor an agrumentational fallacy as it was not being used to make an argument. 

That and I was mostly attempting to show how I am not one of the brainwashed PC drone type people you kept hinting at!

Also:
"Included here is of course a boyfriend presuading a girlfriend to 'put up' when she did not feel like it. Congratulations dude, you are now a rapist according to these researchers."

This wil also argue against other things you have said. 

The guy is a ....ing rapist. Having sex with someone who doesn't want it is ....ing rape. Sexual consent has to come from a completely uncoerced, clean state of mind, with no pressure or it has *no meaning*. 

I actually have trouble believing anybody needs this explained but it us shocking hoe many guys don't understand it.






Outside of argument:
This thread makes me very sad. The fact that we are still having arguments about rape, consent, equality and justice as a species is just ....ing depressing. It's also triggering so I should likely avoid it, but probably won't.


----------



## Jakke (Jan 19, 2014)

AxeHappy said:


> In response to Jakke:
> 
> 1) I would lovr too, but I only have access to a mobile phone and it's just not worth the effort. Just like formatting your quote would have been too much work.



Maybe later then? I honestly have not much of an idea what you specifically have seen, and we can't learn without criticism.




AxeHappy said:


> 2) You are arguing fromna strong bias of females not being oppressed or having any issues with sexual assualt (based of your own experience...) and then completely discounting all the presented evidence (scientific studies in this case) that would disprove your claim.



Well, that's a misinterpretation on your part. I mainly go against the idea that:
1. It is a gendered crime
2. It is as rampant as most feminists claim




AxeHappy said:


> 3) You poisioned thed well of the study someone posted by, instead of attacking the study, but rather attacking the layout of the website. As if that has any bearing whatsoever on the study.



Well, I couldn't find the study, so I think pointing out the poor design is relevant.



AxeHappy said:


> 4) Define oppression? Get ....ed man, hit up Google or any dictionary.



So, you are claiming that there is a dictionary legal oppression of women in our society?



AxeHappy said:


> 5) Justice versus equality, this is a small example of the differences:



And I believe in equality of opportunity, but not necessarily equality of outcome. Equality of outcome completely takes out the factor of personal accountability.




AxeHappy said:


> 6) Argument from Authority? What? You can't say I was attempting to set myself up as an authority and than reference myself as proof of my argument as I never referenced myself as a source of proof?



There is an argument from authority called "argumentum ad verecundiam", which means argument from shame or modesty. It works through setting up oneself as an authority to try to shame (or make) the arguee into backing out based on not having the same authority. I absolutely interpreted this as one of those, as you obviously believe that you having experienced this makes you more qualified to discern the truth in this matter than I am, and you try to make me feel foolish for advancing the argument by pointing this out.




AxeHappy said:


> You could argue appeal to emotion fairly strongly if I had used the statement to prove a point, however it was used to explain my mindset and not as proof of any argument or claim and thusly is not an appeal to anything nor an agrumentational fallacy as it was not being used to make an argument.
> 
> That and I was mostly attempting to show how I am not one of the brainwashed PC drone type people you kept hinting at!



Well, your argument was that was I was saying is bullshit. I wouldn't say that it was an appeal to emotion, because it did not pander to any victim mentality as in "oh... poor me...".


I also appreciate your non-PC-ness



AxeHappy said:


> Also:
> "Included here is of course a boyfriend persuading a girlfriend to 'put up' when she did not feel like it. Congratulations dude, you are now a rapist according to these researchers."
> 
> This wil also argue against other things you have said.
> ...



The only thing consent law takes into consideration is consent, and consent can be given without "undue" pressure. This means that a boyfriend persuading a partner to sleep with him is not a rapist if the pressure has not been "undue". A car salesman can persuade you to buy a car*, but he cannot force you to buy a car. If he persuades you to buy a car, that in itself does not mean that something illegal has taken place

*Consent law comes from contract law, so it's actually a quite valid comparison. The only different is that consent can be retracted at any time during the act (but not after of course), while a contract is signed once.



AxeHappy said:


> Outside of argument:
> This thread makes me very sad. The fact that we are still having arguments about rape, consent, equality and justice as a species is just ....ing depressing. It's also triggering so I should likely avoid it, but probably won't.



All laws are constantly examined and defined due to our collective experiences as a species.

Also dude, I really like you, and we've had some great times on this forum (and I hope many more to come), however, if you cannot approach this from a clear direction and a rational place of mind, why the .... are you in this thread? There is a reason why we do not let victims of crimes preside over the trial.


----------



## AxeHappy (Jan 19, 2014)

1) It will likely be a month or two until I get a computer and this thread will likely be dead and gone but if I remeber I could PM you. 

2) I dont get the SD83? or did SS just come up with that randomly? Anyways:
1. I'm confused by what you mean here? You are saying rape and asshakt aren't gender crimes? Of course they aren't but women suffer them far more in the general society than men. Although male inicdents are *crazy* unddr reported.
2. Most things most feminists claim are sensationalist bullshit. Gotta put your filter on for sure. That said, there are still real issues that are very present. You seem to be coming off as denying that?

3) Absolutely not. That has no bearing on the quality of the study whatsoever. Instead just ask for a direct link or another source for it. You cannot discount an argument on anything other than the validity of the argument.*

Poor design is frustrating, but irrelevant.

4) I am not arguing about the law. If there was a definition of it, it woukd likely be horrible flawed anyways. *shrugs*

5) Hmmm. I'm not necessarily talking about stuff where opportunity and outcome are the only options. Depends on the context/usage of the word I suppose. I am almost starting to feel like we are arguing different concepts maybe? 

Equality is everybody having the same opportunities. Justice is leveling the playing field is maybe a good way to put it?

6) Well that is a misinterpretation on your part. I did it to set myself up as an anti-feminist type of guy. I don't see how any of what I said could ever have be concieved of as making me authority. Maybe if we were arguing about men facing these issues? 

Meh, either way it was certainly no attempt to set myself up as an authority. I never do that outside of teaching guitar which I have circa a decade.of experience in. I apologise since it came off that way.

7) Consent law is bullshit. From a social justice standpoint. I'm not sure it could be improved from a specific legal definition, but I hope to one day live in a world where civilised men don't need a leg definition to tell them how rapey they can be.

8) I orginally came into this thread in hopes that the thread title was going to be true and we were going to have an honest open discussion of gender issues. I was fully expecting to be on the opposite side of the fence than the one I am on now.


----------



## Jakke (Jan 19, 2014)

AxeHappy said:


> 1) It will likely be a month or two until I get a computer and this thread will likely be dead and gone but if I remeber I could PM you.



That'd be great, although you don't have to feel obligated at all. It was more of an interest in regards to this thread.



AxeHappy said:


> 2) I dont get the SD83? or did SS just come up with that randomly?



I have no idea where that came from, I have edited appropriately.




AxeHappy said:


> Anyways:
> 1. I'm confused by what you mean here? You are saying rape and asshakt aren't gender crimes? Of course they aren't but women suffer them far more in the general society than men. Although male inicdents are *crazy* unddr reported.



Well, much of violence and rape advocacy is in regards to how men commit it against women, when it in reality seems to be much more gender-symmetrical (I can try to find the studies, but that might take a while).




AxeHappy said:


> 2. Most things most feminists claim are sensationalist bullshit. Gotta put your filter on for sure. That said, there are still real issues that are very present. You seem to be coming off as denying that?



Well, I think it is important to separate the real issues here. I do not deny that there are global issues, but I do not think that the extreme feminist advocacy we have here is best served at the current location (what is needed is womens' right advocacy, which necessarily isn't the same thing as feminism). There is also a problem of feminists making society blind to mens' issues, such as the rape of men in the Congo*. This does of course not mean turning a blind eye to women, but men has very long been a neglected group in regards to criminal vulnerability.

*For those not in the know, rape of women in the civil war in the Congo has been called one of the greatest abuse of human rights since the holocaust, while conveniently forgetting that rape and castration of men was almost as common (and often performed by women), while there is no support for those men, and that their wifes most likely will divorce them if it ever came out.



AxeHappy said:


> 3) Absolutely not. That has no bearing on the quality of the study whatsoever. Instead just ask for a direct link or another source for it. You cannot discount an argument on anything other than the validity of the argument.*
> 
> Poor design is frustrating, but irrelevant.



Well, I did not comment on the quality of the study at all, as I couldn't find it. I did however comment that I couldn't find it based on the poor design.



AxeHappy said:


> 4) I am not arguing about the law. If there was a definition of it, it woukd likely be horrible flawed anyways. *shrugs*



Well, the dictionary definition of oppression is usually a legal one, and that is that the legal system is set up against a group of people (think Jim Crow)



AxeHappy said:


> 5) Hmmm. I'm not necessarily talking about stuff where opportunity and outcome are the only options. Depends on the context/usage of the word I suppose. I am almost starting to feel like we are arguing different concepts maybe?
> 
> Equality is everybody having the same opportunities. Justice is leveling the playing field is maybe a good way to put it?



I think that's a fair way of putting it, with the addition that those in favour of justice thinks that this equal outcome is owed, and not just because.



AxeHappy said:


> 6) Well that is a misinterpretation on your part. I did it to set myself up as an anti-feminist type of guy. I don't see how any of what I said could ever have be concieved of as making me authority. Maybe if we were arguing about men facing these issues?
> 
> Meh, either way it was certainly no attempt to set myself up as an authority. I never do that outside of teaching guitar which I have circa a decade.of experience in. I apologise since it came off that way.




Well, it was mainly my impression of it all, and I have been known to be wrong before.



AxeHappy said:


> 7) Consent law is bullshit. From a social justice standpoint. I'm not sure it could be improved from a specific legal definition, but I hope to one day live in a world where civilised men don't need a leg definition to tell them how rapey they can be.



What kind of alternative would you prefer, mandatory predominant aggressor policies?



AxeHappy said:


> 8) I orginally came into this thread in hopes that the thread title was going to be true and we were going to have an honest open discussion of gender issues. I was fully expecting to be on the opposite side of the fence than the one I am on now.



Well, to be honest it hasn't really been that much about gender studies anyway


----------



## Gothic Headhunter (Jan 19, 2014)

As a 16 year old male with little experience on an issue such as this, I feel there are really only two things I can say.
First- Axe, I'm sorry that happened to you. 

Second- 


Mik3D23 said:


> Steubenville High School rape case - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
> 
> A group of guys raped a girl while she was passed out and took/distributed pictures of it while they and others made jokes about it (such as "she was deader than Caylee Anthony"). The town and the media tried to make the two guys out as the victims, having their "promising futures" ruined. They received 1 and 2 years in juvenile detention each. That doesn't sound like justice to me..
> 
> This is a pretty prime and recent example of the stigma of our country against rape victims. If I remember correctly when it was happening, the victim and her family received threats and various insults because they were so outraged that two star football players could have their futures ruined.



This pisses me off. The fact that people were more concerned about the football players than the girl because of victim-blaming or whatever rumors they heard about what happened or anything like that is just f ucking stupid. People really need to stop gossiping and spreading rumors about things like this, because that's exactly how it gets out of hand. Unless you were a witness, what you say on a trial such as this (or any criminal trial) should have very little weight to it. I wish people would, instead of sending death threats to the girl and her family when all they have is hearsay, think "I actually don't have all the facts in this situation" and just stop spreading potentially dangerous rumors around.


----------



## flint757 (Jan 19, 2014)

I have to say I agree more with Axehappy than I do Jakke on this. There's no doubt in my mind that some feminists blow things way out of proportion and that there are instances where men get treated unfairly by society and the law just as women do. It doesn't preclude that no problem exists though. Maybe in your country Jakke women are better off, but that really isn't the case in the rest of the world at all. I get that things that are bad can exclusively happen to men in other nations, but you should be calling for more attention to these incidents rather than less for others involving women (that's how it comes across at least). I don't think anyone is intent on saying that because women are mistreated in the middle east (or wherever) that they are also mistreated in the US or Europe either. You, however, are arguing that your nation treats women better than men which somehow discredits that women are mistreated elsewhere in the world (again, how you're coming across). I'm only given that perception though because you have spent more time discrediting/arguing than actually stating the point you are trying to get across. Or maybe I've just overlooked it. 

Even ignoring where we are from it really isn't arguable that women are mistreated more than men around the world. We were actually on the same side in another thread awhile back when it came to the 'wage gap' as I'm actually inclined to agree with you that it is not merely an act of discrimination alone. That being said, I disagree with nearly everything else you've had to say in this thread (to varying degrees). 

One of your counters you've repeatedly brought up is 'well that's already against the law so it is irrelevant', but that isn't 100% true and in many cases not even relevant. Forgetting whether someone was actually 'raped' or not we live in a society that chooses to blame women for men coming on to them too strongly. The social stigma, humiliation, the 'that's the way it is' attitude and how the law approaches such instances is still very much up in the air. Here in the States we live in a culture that has deemed certain behaviors as acceptable and as such even if in a legal sense it is wrong (or murky) most people tend to brush it off. Even when something is truly serious, like rape, it goes unreported because it is degrading and humiliating to admit to someone else. Reliving it over and over again, having to deal with the court system and police officers may be too much for some people to handle so they choose to say nothing. What is unreported is most likely a direct reflection of what is reported too honestly. As a percentage just as many women and men probably don't report rape as those that do report rape. I sincerely doubt that tallying up the men who don't report rape somehow 'levels the playing field'.

Also, the last few posts seem to be more of a futile attempt at discrediting each others arguments by pointing out fallacies rather than actually talking about the content of what is being discussed. I mean it feels like a damn wizard match, 'I counter your appeal to authority with slippery slope'.


----------



## Jakke (Jan 19, 2014)

flint757 said:


> *Maybe in your country Jakke women are better off*, but that really isn't the case in the rest of the world at all.



Julian Assange refered to it as "The Saudi Arabia of Feminism", so I might in turn be too jaded.




flint757 said:


> I get that things that are bad can exclusively happen to men in other nations, but you should be calling for more attention to these incidents rather than less for others involving women (that's how it comes across at least).



Well, I could see that this is the impression one would get if the assumption is made that all attention given to womens' issues are entirely because of rational reasons. I'm not entirely sure that this is, given our biases towards women (The women are wonderful-effect).

Working from the framework that our biology or psychology makes us more prone to side with women, it's not really that outlandish.




flint757 said:


> I don't think anyone is intent on saying that because women are mistreated in the middle east (or wherever) that they are also mistreated in the US or Europe either.



Check a post further up, it seems to make the argument that women not being allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia is somehow applicable or related to our own culture.



flint757 said:


> You, however, are arguing that your nation treats women better than men which somehow discredits that women are mistreated elsewhere in the world (again, how you're coming across).



Then I am sorry that this is what you have interpreted it as. It was not my intention, and I can't really see where I would have made that argument... To clarify though, this is not my point, but my point is rather more culture-specific.



flint757 said:


> I'm only given that perception though because you have spent more time discrediting/arguing than actually stating the point you are trying to get across. Or maybe I've just overlooked it.



Well, I came in arguing against a post, so that's maybe why..
My stances are:
I do not agree with feminists that rape is a primarily gendered crime
I do not agree with the feminist Duluth model of domestic abuse (the patriarchal terrorism paradigm of domestic abuse)
I do not support the notion of a rape culture, as the an existence of such has not been proven.
I have yet to see unideological research regarding rape, sexual harassment, and domestic abuse
I believe the predominant aggressor policy to be a male-targeted policy that do not belong in a civilized society.



flint757 said:


> Even ignoring where we are from it really isn't arguable that women are mistreated more than men around the world.



That do depend on what mistreatment is defined as. Armed conflicts have killed millions and millions of men only the last 100 years, and there are few who batts an eye that men are expected to die for their country.

Sure, I agree that depending on what qualifier is used, women are more mistreated than men globally. I would however disagree with that there is a universal sort of mistreatment.



flint757 said:


> We were actually on the same side in another thread awhile back when it came to the 'wage gap' as I'm actually inclined to agree with you that it is not merely an act of discrimination alone. That being said, I disagree with nearly everything else you've had to say in this thread (to varying degrees).



Yup, and I'd say that that is a sign of a thinking community



flint757 said:


> One of your counters you've repeatedly brought up is 'well that's already against the law so it is irrelevant', but that isn't 100% true and in many cases not even relevant.



Not irrelevant, but I have a hard time seeing how something else can be done about something already illegal. Criminals generally do not care about what society thinks about what they do, so "raising awareness" seems to be fairly toothless as well. 



flint757 said:


> Forgetting whether someone was actually 'raped' or not we live in a society that chooses to blame women for men coming on to them too strongly.



I hear this a lot, yet what I see are people that know the alleged perpetrator who behaves in this way (which is totally anectodal, but I don't think there is any statistics on this..), while the rest of society usually are horrified.



flint757 said:


> The social stigma, humiliation, the 'that's the way it is' attitude and how the law approaches such instances is still very much up in the air. Here in the States we live in a culture that has deemed certain behaviors as acceptable and as such even if in a legal sense it is wrong (or murky) most people tend to brush it off. Even when something is truly serious, like rape, it goes unreported because it is degrading and humiliating to admit to someone else. Reliving it over and over again, having to deal with the court system and police officers may be too much for some people to handle so they choose to say nothing.



Yes, I know that it is very traumatic for the victim. I really don't see what the justice system can do anything different though... (if this is one of your points)
I can also understand why people do not report, but it's a problematic behaviour, as it robs the people there to protect you of the means to protect you and other people.



flint757 said:


> What is unreported is most likely a direct reflection of what is reported too honestly.



I'm not sure that it is, and that is mainly because we do not seem to have any data suggesting how much abuse against men goes unreported.



flint757 said:


> As a percentage just as many women and men probably don't report rape as those that do report rape.



I would not feel confident enough to propose that.




flint757 said:


> I sincerely doubt that tallying up the men who don't report rape somehow 'levels the playing field'.



Well, it's not the rape olympics. I do apologize if I have made it sound like a competition.



flint757 said:


> Also, the last few posts seem to be more of a futile attempt at discrediting each others arguments by pointing out fallacies rather than actually talking about the content of what is being discussed. I mean it feels like a damn wizard match, 'I counter your appeal to authority with slippery slope'.



I've totally got the Blue Eyes White Dragon (amidoingitrite??)



flint757 said:


>



#totallyme


----------



## flint757 (Jan 20, 2014)

Jakke said:


> Then I am sorry that this is what you have interpreted it as. It was not my intention, and I can't really see where I would have made that argument... To clarify though, this is not my point, but my point is rather more culture-specific.
> 
> Well, I came in arguing against a post, so that's maybe why..
> My stances are:
> ...



Thank you for stating your thoughts on the matter.

As for rape and abuse the statistics say women are abused more than men. Could it be more equal? Sure, but as it stands the statistics say otherwise and honestly based on purely anecdotal evidence it isn't hard to believe that it's true either.

In the US 'slut shaming' seems really common. The 'if you hadn't dressed that way' probably being the most common. I don't necessarily agree with everything about what rape culture means, but parts of it seem valid.

Now, I agree that just assuming a man is the aggressor is bad practice if only because that is piss poor police work. The evidence should speak for itself.



Jakke said:


> That do depend on what mistreatment is defined as. Armed conflicts have killed millions and millions of men only the last 100 years, and there are few who batts an eye that men are expected to die for their country.
> 
> Sure, I agree that depending on what qualifier is used, women are more mistreated than men globally. I would however disagree with that there is a universal sort of mistreatment.



Fair enough. I meant sexual based assault/violence. Obviously if we include wars, prisoners, slavery, genocides, etc. men definitely trump. Historically speaking women in most of the world had little to no rights until very recently. In some places they still don't. So I'd include that in with mistreatment as well. That, however, doesn't apply near as much in more civilized societies as it used to.



Jakke said:


> Not irrelevant, but I have a hard time seeing how something else can be done about something already illegal. Criminals generally do not care about what society thinks about what they do, so "raising awareness" seems to be fairly toothless as well.



Valid point. We could create more of a stigma towards the behavior so as to avoid needing the law/police in the first place in some cases. Not all crimes of rape are about domination. I see some pretty skeevy things every-once-in-awhile that aren't illegal, but shouldn't be considered 'normal' and 'acceptable' either. Sometimes certain actions are 'technically' illegal, but it's so mild no one bothers doing anything about it too (like harassment). To better society we shouldn't just rely on peoples concern for jail-time to be the only motivator in not doing certain behaviors. There are certain things as a society that can be stopped merely by deeming them no longer acceptable as a whole.

Think of it like racism. Just being a racist isn't a crime, but racism is dying down. It is doing so because we as a society decided that it is no longer acceptable behavior.



Jakke said:


> I hear this a lot, yet what I see are people that know the alleged perpetrator who behaves in this way (which is totally anectodal, but I don't think there is any statistics on this..), while the rest of society usually are horrified.



It's definitely anecdotal, but I do see it often enough to be concerned. 

In general things are getting better as far as equality goes. We probably need not do anything for it to continue doing so either.



Jakke said:


> I'm not sure that it is, and that is mainly because we do not seem to have any data suggesting how much abuse against men goes unreported.



Well then you can't really build on argument on the notion that rape is gender-symmetrical (or did you mean violence in general?)? Funny enough I have anecdotal evidence that validates this idea as many of the women in my family are pretty violent, but I'm still not completely convinced by the notion that it is 50/50.



Jakke said:


> Well, it's not the rape olympics. I do apologize if I have made it sound like a competition.



No worries.



Jakke said:


> I've totally got the Blue Eyes White Dragon (amidoingitrite??)
> 
> #totallyme





Totally doing it right.


----------



## SD83 (Jan 20, 2014)

Jakke said:


> Is it though? Do you have anything to back that up with? Isn't the normal course that both men and women come running to a woman's aid as soon as she calls out?


I guess they would, but do you think a rather insecure girl (13-15) would tell any of that to anyone besides their best friend? I'm not saying that this happens to the majority of girls or any percentage, I have no numbers or statistics or anything, just personal experience. 



> Groping? That is a crime, and it's your duty in that case as a witness to call the police or security.


If we do witness it, we call the security, if we're just being told by the victim or on of her friends, we advise them to do so themselves, but in more than half of the cases that ends in apologies and "I won't do that again (at least not until next weekend)". And if you'd call the police, pretty much everybody would be pissed. Including the victim. Again, that might be different in other countries, cities or other nightclubs.



> Well, they wouldn't be, as women generally don't need to pick up men.


Which isn't exactly equality  No, to be a bit more serious: That might be true or not (I'd say it is), but I find it a bit disturbing to see that the general tactic for a lot of (young) men of picking up women is not that far from the good old "hit her on the head with a club, then drag her to your cave". Even more disturbing to see that that partly includes myself as well  But I guess that is a different topic alltogether...


----------



## McKay (Jan 20, 2014)

Enjoy:


----------



## Jakke (Jan 20, 2014)

SD83 said:


> I guess they would, but do you think a rather insecure girl (13-15) would tell any of that to anyone besides their best friend? I'm not saying that this happens to the majority of girls or any percentage, I have no numbers or statistics or anything, just personal experience.



As long as it is conjecture, I could imagine telling one's parents would be a priority as well.



SD83 said:


> If we do witness it, we call the security, if we're just being told by the victim or on of her friends, we advise them to do so themselves, but in more than half of the cases that ends in apologies and "I won't do that again (at least not until next weekend)". And if you'd call the police, pretty much everybody would be pissed. Including the victim. Again, that might be different in other countries, cities or other nightclubs.



Great that you take your civic responsibility. My experience is usually that "management reserves the right to deny entry" would work fairly well, throw people out who are behaving like assholes.




SD83 said:


> Which isn't exactly equality



Well, evolution is an unequal bitch.



SD83 said:


> No, to be a bit more serious: That might be true or not (I'd say it is), but I find it a bit disturbing to see that the general tactic for a lot of (young) men of picking up women is not that far from the good old "hit her on the head with a club, then drag her to your cave". Even more disturbing to see that that partly includes myself as well  But I guess that is a different topic alltogether...



When it comes to behaviours closely linked to our sexuality, there is a probability these have evolutionary psychological causes. Is it unlikely that these behaviours are exhibited because they actually work? I mean, they don't have to work 100% of the time, not even 50%, only work well enough so that they work better than other approaches.




McKay said:


> *Brainwash links*



I like Brainwash, in particular because it provides sources.


----------



## Ibanezsam4 (Jan 22, 2014)

a lot of good discussion going on here, if we were at my old university this would have ended in five minutes in a hormonal rage. 

but i have time to contribute to my own thread now so i'll put my hat in the ring. 

while i would like this to be a discussion on a more realistic form of gender studies (i'll get to what i think is lacking in a minute) i dont think i can get to that unless i specify why i opened my post with a volley on modern feminism. 
Someone earlier accused me of not knowing what feminism is; i counter by saying i feel i know what it truly is, and you haven't read the same ....ed up shit i have from feminist theorists (read andrea dworkin people.. she's considered smart by academics which makes me cringe). 

now moving onto rape, we can all agree its wrong, and we as a society should be doing our best to educate our own children at home not to violate someone else's sexual space... but rape as a mainstream crime is reallllllly over-blown. someone posted a 1 in 3 women in the US are raped statistic earlier.. do you know how absurd that is? do the math to find many women represent a third of the total female population in the US, now go to any rape statistic and find the number of convicted rapes in America (you'll have to do a little work here, cuz you'll need to take the estimated amount of unreported rape into account to the ratio of convicted rape). now you're going to see that the actual number number of convicted rape is dwarfed by the "1 in 3" statistic. i only harp on this statistic because a similar stat said "1 in 5 women" and was proven to be false because it too broadly defined rape and sexual assault, so i dont even want to get into how badly that stat was put together... but why is this important to discuss??? 

DISCLAIMER: not saying we should excuse rape.. im saying its being used as a political tool at the moment for the maintenance of feminism. 

its because in order for feminism to work it has to reify the ideology of women as the weaker sex. But isn't that contrary to feminist teachings? yes rhetorical question, it is technically contrary but not far fetched if you look at feminist theory from the past 30 years. 
to understand you need to separate the woman's rights movement from feminism; teacher in the mainstream will tell you they're the same thing but really they have vastly different outcomes. WR is about equality of opportunity (women have equal access to work and education), feminism is about equality of condition (artificially leveling the playing field by way of promoting people based on attributes rather than ability). 

so how does this work? you can only level the playing field by pointing out inequalities, if the inequalities disappear or are improved, then there no longer exists the need to level the field or give others a boost. in the case of women, they have been a larger percentage of the higher educated for a while now, women are representing a larger part of the workforce every year, and the pay gap is non-existent. So why do feminist studies continue to teach oppression? because without the idea of oppression they lose their funding for feminist studies in universities.... literally that's it. all the post-modern feminists theorists over the past 30 years had jobs at a university and wrote about this stuff and made a name doing it (we're talking guest lectures and tours where they could get paid in addition to teaching). 

so back to the weaker sex thing; and this goes hand-in-hand with the oppression. for a study that tells everyone "women are just as capable, and just determined as men and that it is a societal construction that dictates the inequality", have you ever noticed how easily women are abused and oppressed? think about it, women are apparently so capable, yet they are so easily brought down by sex, body image; are constantly in fear of being raped, and are constantly tormented and abused by men. 
where the patriarchy of days past taught women they were incapable because of their sex, today they are taught they are constantly assaulted and must live in fear of men. 

"incapable" has been replaced by "vulnerable"; whereas before the WR movement advocated equal treatment to prove capability, modern feminism draws on old tropes to create the argument of "we're constantly assaulted by patriarchy (damsel in distress trope) we need advocates in government and education to right these wrongs (knight in shining armor) to save us from the evils of men (vicious monster/ need to be rescued trope)." modern feminism is about teaching women to stand on their own two feet, but teaching them to feel oppressed (i say feel here because statistically you cant prove patriarchal oppression in the western world in the modern age) and terrified and that they need help. 
Either way the game hasn't changed for women apparently, but the money in feminism is good so why actually make anybody's life better? 

PART 2
feminism's effect on society needs to be discussed because you cant create an ideology which demonizes men on this level without adversely affecting men also. take for example men being sexually assaulted/raped, its not a stat we discuss in society because feminism has reified the idea of male durability (oh he's a man he can take it) while simultaneously trying to re-create what it means to male. on one hand we're told by feminism "you dont need to cave to societal pressures to act like a bread winner or an uber macho man" but at the same time we're not given the time of day when it comes to men being abused physically, emotionally, or sexually (statistically they're almost even) because it diminishes the argument of female vulnerability and frankly makes women look like dicks. 

on top of that look at all the violence in the media that is directed at men, men in sitcoms and in comedy are more likely to be seen being physically hurt, or in many cases being physically struck by women. we've created a culture where violence against the male body is acceptable and violence against the female is unacceptable. this is also why many turn a blind eye to the statistics that show men being more likely to die on the job, commit suicide, or commit crimes is ignored; because we have taught ourselves that this is normal and should be accepted. 

this is a huge issue because these beliefs about evil masculinity are being taught right now in universities and in public education; and its not being taught in a passive way. beginning in primary school, boys are getting less unstructured recess; its already been proven boys need to physically exert themselves more in order for optimal emotional and physical development. boys are also disproportionately medicated for ADD and ADHD medication (70% of scholastically prescribed medication recipients are boys). Young boys are essentially being medicated to not act like boys. 

it may sound like i put on my tin foil hat just now, but im not advocating a giant conspiracy here. i'm merely stating when you teach women (who are the majority of teachers in the US) that men are more prone to be violent towards women because they exhibit "learned masculine behavior" when they are younger, don't you think teacher or academia would be more likely to correct these behaviors when they see them? 

so to the point of why i created this thread, i believe now is the time we can start to seriously discuss honest gender studies; ones that promote both genders, and ones that admit to the uniqueness of each gender (because right now if you point to studies which demonstrate empirically that there are differences between the sexes on the biological level which affect or behavior you are deemed a sexist and a "biological essentialist"). Combine this with the work on transgendered people which is being done today and i think you would see a society that is more apt to help itself because of its honesty, rather than today's society which centers around victimhood. and when i say society im talking about the US and Europe mostly, so no retorts about the orient please.


----------



## asher (Jan 22, 2014)

Still going to echo previous sentiments that going by rape _convictions_ is highly, highly flawed, because of how many cases we know about that either aren't reported or don't get that far.

Or you know, are the Stubensville slap-on-the-wrist, or where lawyers are good enough to muddy waters or recast doubt and circumstance so that the defendant isn't found to actually be guilty.


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## SD83 (Jan 22, 2014)

Either I don't understand the multi-quote stuff or it just doesn't work for me for some reason... anyway:
@Jakke: Just because it works (and it does) doesn't mean it is right. At least, to me.



Ibanezsam4 said:


> a lot of good discussion going on here


That's what I love about this forum.



> i only harp on this statistic because a similar stat said "1 in 5 women" and was proven to be false because it too broadly defined rape and sexual assault, so i dont even want to get into how badly that stat was put together... but why is this important to discuss???


In what way was it "too broadly defined"? Again, I can only speak for my, I can't find the right word right now, social enviroment (?), but from that experience, I find 1 out of 5 to be surprisingly few. Sure, it comes down to how you define rape/attempted rape. If it requires actual physical violence, then yes, I guess the numbers will be more like 1 out of 10 or even 20. If you however include verbal abuse, threat, or the aformentioned "overwhelming verbal pressure", the numbers explode. That might not be technically rape, but it is close enough to be some ....ed up bullshit.



> and the pay gap is non-existent.


That might be true for the USA, but the average gap in Europe is at about 15%, here in Germany we are at 22%. That isn't even near non-existent or irrelevant.



> boys are also disproportionately medicated for ADD and ADHD medication (70% of scholastically prescribed medication recipients are boys). Young boys are essentially being medicated to not act like boys.


Kids are essentially being medicated to not act like kids. Male or female aside, a kid that does not fit into the scheme for whatever reason? We have drugs for that. Aside from some studies saying that kids at 6 these days have the emotional/social development of a 2 year old from 30 years ago, I see a huge threat in this kind of stuff. If your kid does not act and think like society wants it to, you basically medicate or put them through therapy to achieve something that fits in.

The last paragraph however, I can only totally agree to


----------



## flint757 (Jan 22, 2014)

Ibanezsam4 said:


> while i would like this to be a discussion on a more realistic form of gender studies (i'll get to what i think is lacking in a minute) i dont think i can get to that unless i specify why i opened my post with a volley on modern feminism.
> Someone earlier accused me of not knowing what feminism is; i counter by saying i feel i know what it truly is, and you haven't read the same ....ed up shit i have from feminist theorists (read andrea dworkin people.. she's considered smart by academics which makes me cringe).



I think he meant that in the real world outside of academia and the extremists the majority of feminists do not behave in the way you think. I'm in agreement personally as your argument is very one sided. You're pointing out only the negative and in some cases reaching to make it work.



Ibanezsam4 said:


> now moving onto rape, we can all agree its wrong, and we as a society should be doing our best to educate our own children at home not to violate someone else's sexual space... but rape as a mainstream crime is reallllllly over-blown. someone posted a 1 in 3 women in the US are raped statistic earlier.. do you know how absurd that is? do the math to find many women represent a third of the total female population in the US, now go to any rape statistic and find the number of convicted rapes in America (you'll have to do a little work here, cuz you'll need to take the estimated amount of unreported rape into account to the ratio of convicted rape). now you're going to see that the actual number number of convicted rape is dwarfed by the "1 in 3" statistic. i only harp on this statistic because a similar stat said "1 in 5 women" and was proven to be false because it too broadly defined rape and sexual assault, so i dont even want to get into how badly that stat was put together... but why is this important to discuss???
> 
> DISCLAIMER: not saying we should excuse rape.. im saying its being used as a political tool at the moment for the maintenance of feminism.



You can't just go off of convicted cases. You'd be ignoring the cases where people get off when they probably shouoldn't, that some cases end with the police report and some never get reported at all. Some of those stats may use too broad of an interpretation to describe rape, but the situations you may not consider rape that they included are still not things to be proud of in our society.



Ibanezsam4 said:


> its because in order for feminism to work it has to reify the ideology of women as the weaker sex. But isn't that contrary to feminist teachings? yes rhetorical question, it is technically contrary but not far fetched if you look at feminist theory from the past 30 years.



That's moot honestly. In a legal sense that's pretty much how it seems to work across the board. What feminists and other civil rights group advocate outside of the legal system is just equality in general.

It isn't as if everything either side is saying is completely invalid. Look at current political issues. Religious employers don't want to pay health insurance for birth control yet they take no issue with boner pills and penis pumps being paid for through insurance. Even taking issue with the birth control is really silly considering how little the cost would affect said employer. If that isn't gender discrimination I don't know what is. It certainly isn't religiously driven otherwise male sex health products would be excluded as well.



Ibanezsam4 said:


> to understand you need to separate the woman's rights movement from feminism; teacher in the mainstream will tell you they're the same thing but really they have vastly different outcomes. WR is about equality of opportunity (women have equal access to work and education), feminism is about equality of condition (artificially leveling the playing field by way of promoting people based on attributes rather than ability).



Then they aren't doing a very good job at accomplishing that are they. The only way to measure success is by outcomes. The goal could solely be equal opportunity and it'd still be measured by the results as there really isn't any other way to determine whether something is actually working at the macro level. Other than in politics I've never observed someone getting a promotion or fired just because they were a woman.



Ibanezsam4 said:


> so how does this work? you can only level the playing field by pointing out inequalities, if the inequalities disappear or are improved, then there no longer exists the need to level the field or give others a boost. in the case of women, they have been a larger percentage of the higher educated for a while now, women are representing a larger part of the workforce every year, and the pay gap is non-existent. So why do feminist studies continue to teach oppression? because without the idea of oppression they lose their funding for feminist studies in universities.... literally that's it. all the post-modern feminists theorists over the past 30 years had jobs at a university and wrote about this stuff and made a name doing it (we're talking guest lectures and tours where they could get paid in addition to teaching).



You're cherry picking quite a bit. You can't say more women than men go to college and then say the wage gap is nonexistent for two reasons. One, if there are more educated women than men how come everything is 'equal' in the workforce. If you are pointing out that more women are educated then it'd make sense that women would make more than men as well. Two, the wage gap does exist, but there are reasons beyond sexism that accounts for the majority of it. Sexism not being the cause does not mean the gap doesn't exist. Same with more women in college than men. Perhaps more men in the current economic climate are choosing to skip college for more immediately lucrative careers like construction.

Despite the progress we have made as a society it is ignorant to imply that everything is already equal within reason. A race doesn't end after the first hurdle.

As for women studies classes there is a lot of confirmation bias present. The people who choose to read those books and take those courses are generally of the mindset that men are the enemy already. Maybe you're right about the difference being women rights and feminism, but in our society we just call it feminism and it is a broads term that encompasses the extremes and moderates like any other broad term would. This argument seems to be more about the use of the word feminism. If most of the world considers women rights and feminism to be the same thing then it is. That's how language works. 



Ibanezsam4 said:


> so back to the weaker sex thing; and this goes hand-in-hand with the oppression. for a study that tells everyone "women are just as capable, and just determined as men and that it is a societal construction that dictates the inequality", have you ever noticed how easily women are abused and oppressed? think about it, women are apparently so capable, yet they are so easily brought down by sex, body image; are constantly in fear of being raped, and are constantly tormented and abused by men.
> where the patriarchy of days past taught women they were incapable because of their sex, today they are taught they are constantly assaulted and must live in fear of men.
> 
> "incapable" has been replaced by "vulnerable"; whereas before the WR movement advocated equal treatment to prove capability, modern feminism draws on old tropes to create the argument of "we're constantly assaulted by patriarchy (damsel in distress trope) we need advocates in government and education to right these wrongs (knight in shining armor) to save us from the evils of men (vicious monster/ need to be rescued trope)." modern feminism is about teaching women to stand on their own two feet, but teaching them to feel oppressed (i say feel here because statistically you cant prove patriarchal oppression in the western world in the modern age) and terrified and that they need help.
> Either way the game hasn't changed for women apparently, but the money in feminism is good so why actually make anybody's life better?





Living on this planet I run into women all the time and I don't see them 'afraid' for their lives or feeling tormented by men. In fact the type of woman you've been rambling on about (a feminist who hates men) would be the least likely to play victim in most situations.

Teaching women the history of women rights is not inherently wrong and through the 80's and early 90's there was good cause to be concerned about women rights. There's nothing legally that can be done further to better the cause IMO, but we do tend to idolize women for their bodies. Yes we do the same to men in movies and commercials, but it is far more frequent with women and you are probably 3 times more likely to see an ugly dude in a movie over an ugly woman for that exact same reason. This projects the notion that women are only good for their looks. That is still an issue.

Now what you may agree with is that I don't believe any organization or the government will be able to rectify this. From my perspective it will just take our society evolving past it for us to move forward.



Ibanezsam4 said:


> PART 2
> feminism's effect on society needs to be discussed because you cant create an ideology which demonizes men on this level without adversely affecting men also. take for example men being sexually assaulted/raped, its not a stat we discuss in society because feminism has reified the idea of male durability (oh he's a man he can take it) while simultaneously trying to re-create what it means to male. on one hand we're told by feminism "you dont need to cave to societal pressures to act like a bread winner or an uber macho man" but at the same time we're not given the time of day when it comes to men being abused physically, emotionally, or sexually (statistically they're almost even) because it diminishes the argument of female vulnerability and frankly makes women look like dicks.
> 
> on top of that look at all the violence in the media that is directed at men, men in sitcoms and in comedy are more likely to be seen being physically hurt, or in many cases being physically struck by women. we've created a culture where violence against the male body is acceptable and violence against the female is unacceptable. this is also why many turn a blind eye to the statistics that show men being more likely to die on the job, commit suicide, or commit crimes is ignored; because we have taught ourselves that this is normal and should be accepted.
> ...



From what I'm reading sexual assault and rape are not equal. They are only equal when you include prison statistics which falls out of the scope of this discussion. Personally I couldn't care less about what happens to an inmate. Abuse came at 40% only for female on male assault. That's high, but again not equal.

Pretty much all stats on the subject are murky at best. I'm having a similar issue as you to taking some of these websites seriously. You take issue with feminist being 'men haters', but almost every male advocacy group come across completely as 'women haters'.

As for ADHD, that is a problem completely outside of the gender debate. Boys just happen to be more rowdy than girls. Parents are lazy and many are tired of dealing with a child who is always in trouble so they choose to medicate them instead. It is an issue, but not one based on gender in a discriminatory fashion.



Ibanezsam4 said:


> so to the point of why i created this thread, i believe now is the time we can start to seriously discuss honest gender studies; ones that promote both genders, and ones that admit to the uniqueness of each gender (because right now if you point to studies which demonstrate empirically that there are differences between the sexes on the biological level which affect or behavior you are deemed a sexist and a "biological essentialist"). Combine this with the work on transgendered people which is being done today and i think you would see a society that is more apt to help itself because of its honesty, rather than today's society which centers around victimhood. and when i say society im talking about the US and Europe mostly, so no retorts about the orient please.



I can mostly agree with this. I will say that we are all very different people. As a rule we definitely each have certain biological advantages, but it isn't universal. There are scrawny guy and brawny girls, etc.

I do think that certain things should be performance based rather than gender based like sports, the military, etc. which are currently either segregated or handicapped. As an example there is no equality in the military as long as we arbitrarily lower the physical requirements for women (and the requirements weren't even that high to begin with).

We live in a society that blames victims so is it really shocking that that is where we reference from. We tell people they should have walked in a group, stayed out of dark alleys, dress conservative to avoid being raped. We do a lot of things based on after the incident and what the victim could have done differently to avoid it rather than finding ways to remove the threats in the first place.

Frankly, whether or not things are more equal is irrelevant. If men are being treated 'unfairly' then that can be addressed without diminishing incidents involving women. We need to demand more attention for serious issues, not less for everything else. We are not dealing with limited resources here. We can muster the mental power to think of both simultaneously.

Men


----------



## Jakke (Jan 22, 2014)

SD83 said:


> That might be true for the USA, but the average gap in Europe is at about 15%, here in Germany we are at 22%. That isn't even near non-existent or irrelevant.



The gender-wage gap has turned out to be somewhat of a piece of agenda-driven statistical trickery. Do you know why men earn more than women if you draw out an average?
They:
-Work longer hours
-Work more days out of the year
-Commute longer to their work
-Work on more uncomfortable hours
-Work on more dangerous hours
-Are home on sick-leave a lot less frequent


It's illegal to discriminate based on gender and wages, but it's common sense to pay someone more who gives the employer more.



SD83 said:


> Kids are essentially being medicated to not act like kids. Male or female aside, a kid that does not fit into the scheme for whatever reason? We have drugs for that. Aside from some studies saying that kids at 6 these days have the emotional/social development of a 2 year old from 30 years ago, I see a huge threat in this kind of stuff. If your kid does not act and think like society wants it to, you basically medicate or put them through therapy to achieve something that fits in.



Well, the school system has been more and more feminized due to reforms made to help girls along, something which has pushed boys out of the system even more. I think I will have to correct you, *we* do not medicate boys because they do not act like children, *we* medicate them because they do not act like girls.




SPLC said:


> "*THE REALITY* Men&#8217;s rights groups often cite the work of Deborah Capaldi, a researcher with the Oregon Learning Center, to back their claim. Capaldi did find that women sometimes initiate partner violence, although women involved in mutually aggressive partner relationships were more likely to suffer severe injuries than the men. But Capaldi studied only a very particular subset of the population &#8212; *at-risk youth* &#8212; rather than women in general, *invalidating any claim that her findings applied generally*.



Ironic then considering that the college study that one in five women have been raped is applied generally in the paragraph just above this one

The SPLC:s ideological crusade against AVFM has been criticized, especially since they in that case implies they belong together with the KKK and the New Black Panthers. I believe the SPLC had to backtrack...


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## estabon37 (Jan 22, 2014)

Ibanezsam4 said:


> so how does this work? you can only level the playing field by pointing out inequalities, if the inequalities disappear or are improved, then there no longer exists the need to level the field or give others a boost. in the case of women, they have been a larger percentage of the higher educated for a while now, women are representing a larger part of the workforce every year, and the pay gap is non-existent. So why do feminist studies continue to teach oppression? because without the idea of oppression they lose their funding for feminist studies in universities.... literally that's it. all the post-modern feminists theorists over the past 30 years had jobs at a university and wrote about this stuff and made a name doing it (we're talking guest lectures and tours where they could get paid in addition to teaching)



I realise this is a conversation about women's rights, but I just have to point out a bit of a problem here. You're kind of suggesting that those who study and teach women's rights are justifying their jobs and paychecks by 'playing up' the oppression of women. Now, I don't know how much money is actually floating around the 'women's rights education' sector, but if they're truly in it for the money, they should probably take up economics or law or something that might actually deliver a sweet sum of money. 

The larger problem of this angle is that it kind of targets all of university education. Hell, why have I just studied literature for the last three years? I was just bankrolling all of those who are in it for that sweet Shakespeare cash, and those who are financially invested in promoting the idea that novels like _Slaughterhouse-5_ and _The Quiet American_ say nothing about war, trauma and the human condition, and now exist mostly to maintain the literary education power structure so that lecturers can sell a few dozen books a year. Really, complaining that a feminist studies class doesn't spend much time on men's health is like complaining that a class on literary realism doesn't spend enough time on _Star Wars_. 

Feminist studies continues to teach oppression because the majority of social and cultural treatment of women in the Western world from <1000AD to 1960AD involved oppression, never mind that it's still happening in much of the rest of the world. There's really a lot to go through, and the way politics works, it's not impossible for it to happen again. Things are comparitively good for women right now, but that doesn't mean a large portion of women's rights classes should be disbanded, just as a cold day outside doesn't disprove global warming, or a hot day outside proves it.


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## estabon37 (Jan 22, 2014)

Jakke said:


> Well, the school system has been more and more feminized due to reforms made to help girls along, something which has pushed boys out of the system even more. I think I will have to correct you, *we* do not medicate boys because they do not act like children, *we* medicate them because they do not act like girls.



I know I haven't been part of "the" school system for long, as I'm still studying and at least a year away from having a job, but "the" school system doesn't truly ... exist. At least not in the sense you imply. It sometimes doesn't even exist within individual countries, as education system decisions are often made by states, and even then individual schools have a LOT of say in how their particular school is going to be run. So if particular schools or systems seem to have been 'feminised' (whatever that means), it's certainly not indicative of education at large, or even the general direction of the future of education. 

The medication issue is larger and further reaching than I can really grasp, but here's a link to an RSA video drawn over the top of a talk by Ken Robinson. At one point he talks about the over-medicating of students in the USA, and a lot of it seems to be about 'controlling' students. In what little experience I have, not a lot of students are on long term medication, because that's just not part of Australia's culture, occasionally to the detriment of children and adolescents. I've worked in classes where one or two students really can ruin a teacher's ability to work with the other 80-90% of the class, but funnily enough they become more manageable when class sizes are smaller, and the teacher can give them more effort and attention. It's just my opinion, but I think medicating students has more to do with a classroom, and therefore a system, that can handle large student numbers and low teacher numbers, where students willingly copy down and recreate whatever they're told - a practice that is certainly aided by ADD medications. If you consider these behaviours and practices 'feminine', that's a personal interpretation more than an accepted status. I also invite you to come to a rural Australian school where the girls have a tendency scream just as many 'C' and 'F' words as the boys, and are equally obsessed with sport, sex, and throwing things at one another across the room. I know, I know: it's a small sample size and therefore doesn't count. But generalisations are equally problematic, especially when they're applied to an education system that stretches across several continents and is impossibly diverse in both its application and its areas of study. 

In short, medication isn't about 'feminisation', it's about compliance. If we take anything from Ken Robinson's various talks (and I've taken a lot from them), it's that compliance doesn't breed critical or creative thinking: the two most important elements in anybody's ability to make something of their lives.


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## SD83 (Jan 22, 2014)

Jakke said:


> The gender-wage gap has turned out to be somewhat of a piece of agenda-driven statistical trickery. Do you know why men earn more than women if you draw out an average?
> They:
> -Work longer hours
> -Work more days out of the year
> ...


I have to admit that I never looked up those studies in detail and assumed whoever did those calculated the difference in pay per hour for the exact same job situation with the exact same qualifications. Seeing as how I regard any kind of lobbyist or politician as a notorious liar, that wouldn't surprise me at all and I stand corrected.



> Well, the school system has been more and more feminized due to reforms made to help girls along, something which has pushed boys out of the system even more. I think I will have to correct you, *we* do not medicate boys because they do not act like children, *we* medicate them because they do not act like girls.


That would imply that girls generally are calm, can concentrate easier, etc. Again, the statistics might say so, my personal experience both in private and studying to become a teacher say otherwise, and if statistics and personal experience conflict, I tend to doubt the statistics first (as for example with gender differences in drinking and smoking. Official statistics say more boys get drunk than girls, more boys smoke than girls, personal experience say it is exactly the other way around, and quiet extreme so for smoking). Which means you might still be right and I'm just stubborn and have a limited field of view


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## RevelGTR (Jan 23, 2014)

I fully support feminism as a concept. But as has been said, I have encountered many "feminists" who are frankly disgusting bigots. I've been told that I and all men would be capable of rape under the right circumstances. I do not believe in rape, and would not consider myself capable of rape in any capacity. Unfortunately the attitude of many feminists in my age group (just out of high school - college age) is that men are all dsigusting pigs.


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## McKay (Jan 23, 2014)

flint757 said:


> As for ADHD, that is a problem completely outside of the gender debate. Boys just happen to be more rowdy than girls. Parents are lazy and many are tired of dealing with a child who is always in trouble so they choose to medicate them instead. It is an issue, but not one based on gender in a discriminatory fashion.



So when there is an institutional bias against males it's not sexism, but when there's an institutional bias against women, feminism is needed because of muh patriarchy?



> I do think that certain things should be performance based rather than gender based like sports, the military, etc. which are currently either segregated or handicapped. As an example there is no equality in the military as long as we arbitrarily lower the physical requirements for women (and the requirements weren't even that high to begin with).



+1



> We live in a society that blames victims so is it really shocking that that is where we reference from.



We live in a culture that perpetually celebrates victims, I have no idea where the idea that we live in a totalistic victim-blaming society comes from. Open a magazine at random and the chances are you'll find a victim story. We're obsessed with them.



> Frankly, whether or not things are more equal is irrelevant. If men are being treated 'unfairly' then that can be addressed without diminishing incidents involving women. We need to demand more attention for serious issues, not less for everything else. We are not dealing with limited resources here. We can muster the mental power to think of both simultaneously.



Who ever suggested otherwise?


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## McKay (Jan 23, 2014)

estabon37 said:


> I realise this is a conversation about women's rights, but I just have to point out a bit of a problem here. You're kind of suggesting that those who study and teach women's rights are justifying their jobs and paychecks by 'playing up' the oppression of women. Now, I don't know how much money is actually floating around the 'women's rights education' sector, but if they're truly in it for the money, they should probably take up economics or law or something that might actually deliver a sweet sum of money.



Are you seriously suggesting that careers in teaching and economics are analogous in their motivations, requirements and difficulty? Hell, we all love money, why don't we all become brain surgeons?



> I have to admit that I never looked up those studies in detail and assumed whoever did those calculated the difference in pay per hour for the exact same job situation with the exact same qualifications. Seeing as how I regard any kind of lobbyist or politician as a notorious liar, that wouldn't surprise me at all and I stand corrected.



Yet it's still brought up as a valid point of discussion and taught in universities. It's no wonder people are extremely sceptical of feminism.


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## Jakke (Jan 23, 2014)

SD83 said:


> I have to admit that I never looked up those studies in detail and assumed whoever did those calculated the difference in pay per hour for the exact same job situation with the exact same qualifications. Seeing as how I regard any kind of lobbyist or politician as a notorious liar, that wouldn't surprise me at all and I stand corrected.



What we know is that the more variables like these are adjusted for, the gender wage gap shrinks more and more



SD83 said:


> That would imply that girls generally are calm, can concentrate easier, etc. Again, the statistics might say so, my personal experience both in private and studying to become a teacher say otherwise, and if statistics and personal experience conflict, I tend to doubt the statistics first (as for example with gender differences in drinking and smoking. Official statistics say more boys get drunk than girls, more boys smoke than girls, personal experience say it is exactly the other way around, and quiet extreme so for smoking). Which means you might still be right and I'm just stubborn and have a limited field of view



Well, boys and girls learn things differently, and what has been done currently is to support the way that girls tend to learn (and I will not "go fvck myself, dear anonymous guy), which has left many boys behind. Girls already dominate secondary education, but we still asa society wants to get even more of them into the university world with, for example female-only scholarships.


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## Ibanezsam4 (Jan 23, 2014)

estabon37 said:


> I realise this is a conversation about women's rights, but I just have to point out a bit of a problem here. You're kind of suggesting that those who study and teach women's rights are justifying their jobs and paychecks by 'playing up' the oppression of women. Now, I don't know how much money is actually floating around the 'women's rights education' sector, but if they're truly in it for the money, they should probably take up economics or law or something that might actually deliver a sweet sum of money.



right... because nobody goes into a career they love; its all about the money..... what im talking about is institutionalized feminism can only exist if constant oppression of women is _perceived _ to exist. 

if all woman's studies taught "you know girls, we went through a lot of shit over the past several thousand years (im going to ignore the history of matriarchal cultures because white upper middle-class feminist professors actually dont care about the culture of brown people as much as they say they do), but im happy to report we're turning this ship around and you guys represent the majority of secondary education, the electorate, and are representing a greater part of the labor force every year," then frankly there wouldnt be a need for feminism besides a course on the history of women in culture class. 

however because this system reifies itself (i.e. perpetuates the conditions necessary to maintain, or grow), in this case presents a case of constant oppression so that funding for feminist studies does not dry up and leave many a professor around the world out of a job teaching this particular brand of neo-marxism to impressionable, and not entirely self-actualized, females. 

some of the more notable feminist theories being taught at the university level are "languages because of the preference towards male conjugation is oppressive" (that was devised back in the 70s in France), "veganism is truly feminist because it eliminates the male-hunter-gatherer connotations from the diet", "only lesbian communities offer true freedom for the oppressed modern woman", "all heterosexual intercourse, regardless of consent, is rape (this one is a personal favorite, her name is adrea dworkin, and she developed this theory because sex hurt her the first time; so she became a lesbian)". 

now you may say "hey, there are no courses like those wide-spread across the university system!!!!!" and while you may be correct in that assertion, i contend i had to read all of those above articles and works IN A FUGGIN ENGLISH CLASS! 

basically, MODERN feminism is an ideology, which is an off-shoot of the woman's rights movement. now we have fantastic examples in history of when ideology is taught (organized religion anybody????) over verifiable-evidenced-based fact. and in every example it breeds ignorance, fear, bigotry, an almost rabid apathy to contrary evidence and a strong aversion to cognitive dissonance. 



estabon37 said:


> I know I haven't been part of "the" school system for long, as I'm still studying and at least a year away from having a job, but "the" school system doesn't truly ... exist. At least not in the sense you imply. It sometimes doesn't even exist within individual countries, as education system decisions are often made by states, and even then individual schools have a LOT of say in how their particular school is going to be run. So if particular schools or systems seem to have been 'feminised' (whatever that means), it's certainly not indicative of education at large, or even the general direction of the future of education.



so you mean to say government branches such as the Department of Education, or national teachers unions/lobbying groups such as the National Education Association have no means of speaking to their constituency on the state or local level? granted those are US examples, but the first world has largely a national, compulsory attendance-based education system. Granted in European countries (im not sure how many do this but i know a few do) some schools actually have a lot of control over curriculum and lots of flexibility with their pedagogical methods, but many other countries also have education policy dictated in a top-down approach. im assuming you're still referring to developing countries when you say "some dont have systems at all". 

and what we mean by "feminized" is not so much a deliberate (although some theorists have advocated this approach so really its up in the air) attempt to make the education a more accommodating environment for women, but rather feminism is indirectly feminizing schools. 

i'll reiterate my above example: 
Women largely make up the teaching work force, women are taught (throughout much of their life) they have been/continue to be oppressed (all girls by high school know about the alleged pay gap), they go to university and are taught more modern feminist theory/ideology and are indoctrinated by it (if you think the education system is not an indoctrination method then there is a whole other conversation worth having). 
women, blindly taught an ideology (this is starting to resemble creationism vs. evolution) then take their preconceived notions about how masculinity is a social construction ignore the fact that young males _require_ more physical exercise in order to be better in the classroom... hell they may even see the development of physicality as the first sign of chauvinism! and as such, young boys are prescribed medication in a massively disproportionate way compared to girls. because they dont know how to deal with the energy level. 

whether you believe it or not, the numbers on medicating males in school are cold hard fact. and by that token i assert that medicating males is a form of discrimination and as an above post pointed out, sexism, and should be ceased immediately for the interest of 50% of schooling population. 

in a perfect "feminist" world where all genders are equally (according to the usual disclaimer feminists spew before they rip into how men are all capable of assaulting them) this matter would be taken very seriously.. but it isnt.

feminism has done more to push male issues far out of the spotlight so that society doesn't noticed how ....ed up their ideology is. if anything, feminism has de-legitimized men to the point where "being male" is synonymous with "breaking things, hurting people". their mantra is "men are durable, and sins of the father be damned! they are all being punished!' 

i submit this video to ya'll to consider while evaluating feminism and how it manipulates perception:


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## asher (Jan 23, 2014)

Ibanezsam4 said:


> if all woman's studies taught "you know girls, we went through a lot of shit over the past several thousand years (im going to ignore the history of matriarchal cultures because white upper middle-class feminist professors actually dont care about the culture of brown people as much as they say they do), but im happy to report we're turning this ship around and you guys represent the majority of secondary education, the electorate, and are representing a greater part of the labor force every year," then frankly there wouldnt be a need for feminism besides a course on the history of women in culture class.
> 
> however because this system reifies itself (i.e. perpetuates the conditions necessary to maintain, or grow), in this case presents a case of constant oppression so that funding for feminist studies does not dry up and leave many a professor around the world out of a job teaching this particular brand of neo-marxism to impressionable, and not entirely self-actualized, females.



When a significant portion of the country stops believing this (kind of) stuff, then I'll start to agree with you more:

GOP congressman&#8217;s book: &#8216;The wife is to voluntarily submit&#8217; to her husband


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## Ibanezsam4 (Jan 23, 2014)

asher said:


> When a significant portion of the country stops believing this (kind of) stuff, then I'll start to agree with you more:
> 
> GOP congressman&#8217;s book: &#8216;The wife is to voluntarily submit&#8217; to her husband



really dude? discriminatory behavior is acceptable as long as a dying breed of white people still perpetuates whatever archaic (and not representing the majority of popular male opinion) still exists??????? 

ARE YOU ....ING INSANE??? morally thats wrong, ethically thats wrong, and logically that is so far beyond the concept of rational you might as well be in bed with that guy because your argument is just as messed up. 

let me break it down for you, a bunch of KKK guys snatch a black man to lynch him to instill fear into the black population. by your logic the proper retaliation to this is to grab an innocent white guy and string him up too. by you logic, hate is the proper response to hate. 

you would rather let an ideology that is fueled by the belief that all men consistently and conspiratorially make life for women harder, run loose because a white guy in the deep south is still quoting the Bible??? wow! thats fair to both men and women everywhere on the planet! 

how about we disregard ALL extremes??? how about we ignore the hate on either side of the debate and focus on what really helps people?? how about we make a thread on a guitar nerd forum to get to that more enlightened discussion without reverting back to *lazy argumentation* because someone cant get over cognitive dissonance????? 

logic people!


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## asher (Jan 23, 2014)

Wow. Way to blow that completely out of proportion and run to some ridiculous conclusions.

A lot of what I'm getting out of your arguments are that women aren't really being discriminated against all that much, things are pretty okay, let's turn around and look at where men are.

Until shit like I quoted stops getting spouted by a significant portion of people, I cannot accept your position to be true.


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## darren (Jan 23, 2014)

Here's an interesting perspective:

SEX OBJECT BS - YouTube


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## Ibanezsam4 (Jan 23, 2014)

asher said:


> Wow. Way to blow that completely out of proportion and run to some ridiculous conclusions.



no it was piss poor argument you didn't think through whatsoever. you didn't think about any of the conclusions your position offered. you essentially argued that if small (negligible actually) group of haters exist, it justifies a whole position which targets the group at large and misrepresents them. so explain how this is a valid position on your part? would this line of thinking make sense when applied to another argument? if you cant pass those tests, then it doesn't work. 



> Until shit like I quoted stops getting spouted by a significant portion of people, I cannot accept your position to be true.


so wait... other viewpoints can't exist in the presence of another????? fascinating. 

the burden of proof on you sir, what percentage of the total population (total = national) is this "significant portion"? does this significant portion have any lasting power that cant be reversed? does this significant portion represent a growing percentage of the total or a shrinking? 

you see i can point to stats on how America is growing more secular, but burden of proof is not on me right now. 

c'mon lets get down to this Socratic style.


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## Necris (Jan 23, 2014)

Jakke said:


> Well, the school system has been more and more feminized due to reforms made to help girls along, something which has* pushed boys out of the system even more. I think I will have to correct you, *we* do not medicate boys because they do not act like children, *we* medicate them because they do not act like girls.*


I would love to see you back this up. While I would agree with you that medication is over prescribed to children_ in general_, I have a hard time imagining you finding any empirical evidence to back up your claim that boys are being medicated strictly because they do not act like girls.


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## Jakke (Jan 23, 2014)

darren said:


> Here's an interesting perspective:
> 
> SEX OBJECT BS - YouTube



Oh, and look what Paul Elam said just below:


Paul Elam said:


> Case in point. Please observe the top that Laci is wearing for this video. What is the purpose of the plunging neckline? It has no functional purpose, other than the possibility that her head would not fit though the hole without the extra space. Given that her head does not look that big, it must have another purpose.
> 
> And it does. The entire purpose of that design is so that the neckline plunges just far enough to accentuate the start of her cleavage. It is designed to accentuate and present one of Laci's sexual markers for public viewing. That is the only purpose of that design, and that is why she chose to wear it, consciously or not.
> 
> ...



Laci wants all the benefits of her sex appeal, yet the benefit to chastize people for appreciating it for the (according to her) wrong reasons (or even the wrong person doing it).


I tend to rather follow the Dan Savage idea on sexual objectification, and that is that sexual objectification is the first stage in any kind of attraction. If you see an attractive woman (I assume, but the probability is really on my side) on the street, is your first thought that "oh golly! I would really like to learn more about her agency, and how she really is as a person!"?
-Of course not, because no person works like that (and if that was your first thought, I sincerely apologize). You have now successfully objectified that woman, you chauvinistic misogynist!

Objectification also happens when the agency of a person is not important, such as an horde enemy in a computer game (who is, incidently almost 100% male), or in *gasp*... porn.




Objectification is only negative if the result is negative, such as if you kill someone. Even if you get to know someone and keep objectifying the person, that might be a very large issue. 

If there is no negative fallout... Who cares, really?



Necris said:


> I would love to see you back this up. While I would agree with you that medication is over prescribed to children_ in general_, I have a hard time imagining you finding any empirical evidence to back up your claim that boys are being medicated strictly because they do not act like girls.



That was a bit of a rhethoric device (a rhetorical flourish if you like). We know how girls tend to act, we know how boys tend to act, we desire a behaviour more likely to be exhibited by girls in the classroom, and we tend to medicate away behaviour more likely to be exhibited by boys.


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## Ibanezsam4 (Jan 23, 2014)

Necris said:


> I would love to see you back this up. While I would agree with you that medication is over prescribed to children_ in general_, I have a hard time imagining you finding any empirical evidence to back up your claim that boys are being medicated strictly because they do not act like girls.



right now, i don't believe there is much to back this assertion up currently (the questions are literally being asked now, by people like myself and Jaake, and by others. right now what we do have is the stats that show how disproportionate it is, we have other bits of evidence that show there is far less emphasis on physical development in the form of unrestricted recesses (there being curtailed around the country). and we have proof of boys from grade school into secondary education suffering from a falling GPA. I should say its a *hypothesis *, but it makes a helluva lot of sense when you consider how are education systems rewards the ones who sit still and do well at the desk and leaves behind the ones that don't. 

Also more fuel to the fire here, kinda more incentive to study gender from a new perspective rather the current model: 
 

EDITED per Jaake's correction


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## Jakke (Jan 23, 2014)

Ibanezsam4 said:


> I should say its a *hypothesis*



FIFY


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## Necris (Jan 23, 2014)

Jakke said:


> That was a bit of a rhethoric device (a rhetorical flourish if you like). We know how girls tend to act, we know how boys tend to act, we desire a behaviour more likely to be exhibited by girls in the classroom, and we tend to medicate away behaviour more likely to be exhibited by boys.



Just because girls may tend to exhibit behavior more likely to be desirable for a classroom environment doesn't mean that the choice to medicate boys is a byproduct of feminism; at face value that is an absurd claim. I'd like to be walked through how you get from point A to point B.

The parents of the children are a far more likely candidate for the blame in my eyes.



Ibanezsam4 said:


> right now, i don't believe there is much to back this assertion up currently (the questions are literally being asked now, by people like myself and Jaake, and by others. right now what we do have is the stats that show how disproportionate it is,


While you may have stats that show boys are disproportionately more medicated than girls, you do not have stats or evidence that will directly tie the decision to feminism; as such your hypothesis (Feminism is the cause of the disproportionate amount of choices to medicate of boys over girls) carries as much weight as any other unsupported hypothesis.



> we have other bits of evidence that show there is far less emphasis on physical development in the form of unrestricted recesses (there being curtailed around the country).


 I would again ask for you to walk me through exactly how this is a byproduct of feminism.



> and we have proof of boys from grade school into secondary education suffering from a falling GPA. I should say its a *hypothesis *, but it makes a helluva lot of sense when you consider how are education systems rewards the ones who sit still and do well at the desk and leaves behind the ones that don't.


My grades fell significantly during middle school and high school; I do not see how feminism could have had any direct effect on my grades; or any effect at all for that matter.

As an aside, I haven't yet watched the video you included in your post. I'll do that later tonight.


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## Ibanezsam4 (Jan 23, 2014)

@ Necris what we have is stats that coincide with medication rates going up as unstructured recesses are being eliminated, we have declining grades of males only (also a product of not having a flexible education structure). 

now this isn't a direct cause of feminism, call it a nasty byproduct. but you have generations of teachers and administrators who have been told (by feminist academia) that there are no differences (other than physical) in the development in boys and girls, and that gender is a societal construct (to say otherwise in feminism results in you being called a biological essentialist). 

so the result you're left with is a generation or two of teachers and administrators who are not sensitive to the documented fact that boys _need_ to be wild, reckless, and energetic and have the time set aside for physical activity outside of gym class. On top of that males are largely hands-on learners (whereas the majority of girls do better in academic "book learning" style) which is also being ignored because "boys and girls are the same, gender is a societal construct". 
When boys are not given this they tend to be deemed "disruptive"... and disruptive children could have a learning disorder, because disorders can be treated medically, so the disruptiveness is treated medically. check this out about ADD and ADHD being an overprescribed disorder http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120330081735.htm 

feminism's fault directly? no. but its what happens when you give people inaccurate information; you get bad results. 

which is why i propose gender studies which allow for concept of the genders being different. because then you can better cater to the needs of girls and boys when they're learning. 

EDITED: for ADD study


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## estabon37 (Jan 23, 2014)

Ibanezsam4 said:


> really dude? discriminatory behavior is acceptable as long as a dying breed of white people still perpetuates whatever archaic (and not representing the majority of popular male opinion) still exists???????



The problem with this dying breed is that they're the ones in charge, and thanks to various political manouvers such as gerrymandering, voter ID laws, and the fact that they often only have to appeal to the extreme elements within their own parties, the dying breed will likely be able to hold onto power for far longer than one might expect. As it stands they're hardly representative of their electorates, and yet they make the decisions. This goes for 'both sides' of politics, and is again a larger issue than our current conversation could probably handle.



Ibanezsam4 said:


> right... because nobody goes into a career they love; its all about the money..... what im talking about is institutionalized feminism can only exist if constant oppression of women is _perceived _ to exist.



I wasn't suggesting they were in it for the money, I was saying that's what I got from your post that I quoted above. You suggest it again here:



Ibanezsam4 said:


> however because this system reifies itself (i.e. perpetuates the conditions necessary to maintain, or grow), in this case presents a case of constant oppression so that funding for feminist studies does not dry up and leave many a professor around the world out of a job teaching this particular brand of neo-marxism to impressionable, and not entirely self-actualized, females.



I'm not saying there's 'big money' in feminist studies, but for you to suggest that they perpetuate stereotypes simply as a means of justifying their jobs (in your words: "so that funding for feminist studies does not dry up") suggests that they're in it for the money. 

On the education topic:



Ibanezsam4 said:


> the first world has largely a national, compulsory attendance-based education system. Granted in European countries (im not sure how many do this but i know a few do) some schools actually have a lot of control over curriculum and lots of flexibility with their pedagogical methods, but many other countries also have education policy dictated in a top-down approach. im assuming you're still referring to developing countries when you say "some dont have systems at all".



No, I'm referring to exactly what you're talking about here. In many countries schools get to teach what they want once they meet literacy and numeracy requirements, so the majority of the curriculum is hardly dictated. In both the US and Australia, private schools get to teach what they want beyond the basics. In Australia, religious schools get to teach what they want beyond the basics. In England, you can register your intent to home school your children, at which point there are no attendance requirements - I'm not sure what the systems exist for home schooling in the US or Australia, but there has to be something, otherwise the Amish would be having their doors kicked in and their children dragged off to public schools. And haven't we debated on this site the ridiculousness of various US states and individual schools choosing to dump teaching evolution in science classes? This hardly suggests a dictated, top-down approach. 

This is exactly what I mean. The sheer diversity of education systems means there can't really be an overall "education system", and the sheer diversity of educational institutions (be they primary, secondary, tertiary, religious, or private) means that those systems couldn't be very effective in attempting to micromanage what schools teach. Australia has just created a national curriculum for the first time as of three years ago, and we're being taught how to follow it in university, and I've yet to meet a teacher that doesn't basically ignore it. At the end of the day, what you teach is decided through long term planning with principals and coordinators and fellow teachers, or sometimes you walk into class and just think: "We watched Mary Poppins the other day and none of the kids understood the song at the beginning about women winning the right to vote. Let's do a class on the Suffragettes.". When taken to an extreme, this is how we wind up with situations such as:



Ibanezsam4 said:


> some of the more notable feminist theories being taught at the university level are "languages because of the preference towards male conjugation is oppressive" (that was devised back in the 70s in France), "veganism is truly feminist because it eliminates the male-hunter-gatherer connotations from the diet", "only lesbian communities offer true freedom for the oppressed modern woman", "all heterosexual intercourse, regardless of consent, is rape (this one is a personal favorite, her name is adrea dworkin, and she developed this theory because sex hurt her the first time; so she became a lesbian)".
> 
> now you may say "hey, there are no courses like those wide-spread across the university system!!!!!" and while you may be correct in that assertion, i contend i had to read all of those above articles and works IN A FUGGIN ENGLISH CLASS!



That's a shame, man. Mostly because those are the least notable feminist theories I've heard of. A couple of the classes I've done have looked into feminism and every time have looked into every stage of the feminism spectrum. Just as you point out above that old white people don't represent the majority of men:



Ibanezsam4 said:


> a dying breed of white people still perpetuates whatever archaic (and not representing the majority of popular male opinion) still exists???????



The teacher you had and the theorists she liked do not necessarily represent the majority of female opinion, or the majority of what women are being taught. It's a little disingenuous to suggest that those politicians don't count because they're a minority that aren't representative of men and then base your argument on a minority that you suggest are representative of feminists. 



Ibanezsam4 said:


> Women largely make up the teaching work force, women are taught (throughout much of their life) they have been/continue to be oppressed (all girls by high school know about the alleged pay gap), they go to university and are taught more modern feminist theory/ideology and are indoctrinated by it (if you think the education system is not an indoctrination method then there is a whole other conversation worth having).



You contend that education is indoctrination, and certainly the early years of education support that: we teach little kids the fundamental stuff that helps them survive and thrive in a way where we don't really allow them to question what we teach, and they take that learning method with them throughout the rest of their education, and sometimes their entire lives. High school education is really supposed to be about breaking that mould, but it doesn't always work out that way, because many teachers would rather just have compliant students that accept everything they're told. Clearly, it's possible to resist that kind of indoctrination, otherwise you'd have swallowed whole the things your feminism lecturer was teaching. You seem to think your ability to resist is based on your gender, because:



Ibanezsam4 said:


> women, blindly taught an ideology (this is starting to resemble creationism vs. evolution) then take their preconceived notions about how masculinity is a social construction ignore the fact that young males _require_ more physical exercise in order to be better in the classroom... hell they may even see the development of physicality as the first sign of chauvinism!



If women tend to blindy accept what is taught them, how could a women's movement ever have existed? Once upon a time women were taught that their social role was to cook, clean, have babies, not vote, not have any control or power. As you say, that doesn't really happen anymore, but it wasn't because men generously gave them those rights and that power. Women earned it, and it's important to teach young women how and why that happened. And while young women these days might be willing to accept a narrative that places them above males (incorrect though that narrative may be), that narrative doesn't give them true social or political power that they don't have to compete against men for, unlike the old narrative that constantly told women that they were less intelligent and simply incapable of higher social and political functions. 



Ibanezsam4 said:


> young boys are prescribed medication in a massively disproportionate way compared to girls. because they dont know how to deal with the energy level.
> 
> whether you believe it or not, the numbers on medicating males in school are cold hard fact. and by that token i assert that medicating males is a form of discrimination and as an above post pointed out, sexism, and should be ceased immediately for the interest of 50% of schooling population.



I don't just believe it, I've read quite a lot about it, and seen a little bit of it, even though over-medicating is not really a part of Australian culture, and companies aren't allowed to advertise or push drugs on doctors here. A lot has been written and said about the over-medicating of our kids and teens, but what I've never heard said or seen written is that boys are being targeted specifically to make them more like girls, which both you and Jakke suggested earlier in the thread. In fact, almost all of the stuff I've seen is related to conditions such as ADD or Autism, which is more prevalent in boys than girls, and in my opinion is over-diagnosed in general. I think the problem is that you're seeing the deliberate targeting of boys, where I think I'm seeing the deliberate targeting of Americans by drug companies. It's not just teachers who 'benefit' from drugged-up kids: many parents are only too happy to have docile children, and take enough meds themselves that they see it as relatively normal. (Porcupine Tree fans might recognise this theme from the awesome album _Fear of a Blank Planet_, which itself is inspired by Bret Easton Ellis' novel _Lunar Park_ - both are highly recommended )

Last point, and I think it's an interesting one:

The women's rights movement has been credited with revolutionising the way society deals with our biggest issues. Dawkins credits the women's rights model as the most effective means of escaping religious oppression. Gay rights groups have credited the women's movement for opening the door that allows them to access their own rights. Every group has its extreme and obnoxious members, but as you pointed out in terms of older politicians, you can't let those extremists be representative of the group. Otherwise, I'd say that everybody interested in the site "A Voice For Men" was represented by its founder, who in 2011 posted the following:



> You see, I find you, as a feminist, to be a loathsome, vile piece of human garbage. I find you so pernicious and repugnant that the idea of ....ing your shit up gives me an erection.



That's not the worst of what he says in that post - it's worth checking out the rest. Now, I know that this guy and his extreme views don't represent the majority of men who want to have serious conversations about gender issues, men's status and men's health. But it's easy for me to do that because he's just some whack job on the internet. You had to deal with a whack job face to face in a classroom, and it's got you understandably and justifiably pretty pissed off. But please, don't think that the teacher you dealt with represents the majority of feminists, or that the books she promoted represent the majority of feminist literature.


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## estabon37 (Jan 23, 2014)

Ibanezsam4 said:


> so the result you're left with is a generation or two of teachers and administrators who are not sensitive to the documented fact that boys _need_ to be wild, reckless, and energetic and have the time set aside for physical activity outside of gym class. On top of that males are largely hands-on learners (whereas the majority of girls do better in academic "book learning" style) which is also being ignored because "boys and girls are the same, gender is a societal construct".
> When boys are not given this they tend to be deemed "disruptive"... and disruptive children could have a learning disorder, because disorders can be treated medically, so the disruptiveness is treated medically. check this out about ADD and ADHD being an overprescribed disorder



Sorry to add to an already very long previous post, but schooling systems never really recognised that boys need to use up their energy. In the days of our parents and grandparents, boys were threatened to sit still and read / write or else they'd get hit by a cane, or some other punishment. Many years ago Howard Gardner came up with a theory called "Multiple Intelligences", which suggests that all human being learn differently and have different capabilities, including bodily / kinesthetic abilities. How to implement this reality in a classroom is a real challenge, and though are certainly known to be more energetic in certain agegroups, the challenge also applies to girls. Ken Robinson (once again) tells a story of a girl who "couldn't learn" unless she was moving. She eventually became a very capable ballerina, and schools just don't know what to do with students like that. Again, I think medication is not the answer, but again, I don't think 'feminism' is the culprit. Parents and teachers alike prefer their lives to be easy, and docile children are easy. The responsibility for both physical punishment of over-active kids and the over-medication of those kids rests with parents and teachers who want an easy way out - not parents and teachers who think girls are 'better' than boys.


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## Grand Moff Tim (Jan 24, 2014)

estabon37 said:


> Sorry to add to an already very long previous post, but schooling systems never really recognised that boys need to use up their energy. In the days of our parents and grandparents, boys were threatened to sit still and read / write or else they'd get hit by a cane, or some other punishment. Many years ago Howard Gardner came up with a theory called "Multiple Intelligences", which suggests that all human being learn differently and have different capabilities, including bodily / kinesthetic abilities. How to implement this reality in a classroom is a real challenge, and though are certainly known to be more energetic in certain agegroups, the challenge also applies to girls. Ken Robinson (once again) tells a story of a girl who "couldn't learn" unless she was moving. She eventually became a very capable ballerina, and schools just don't know what to do with students like that. Again, I think medication is not the answer, but again, I don't think 'feminism' is the culprit. Parents and teachers alike prefer their lives to be easy, and docile children are easy. The responsibility for both physical punishment of over-active kids and the over-medication of those kids rests with parents and teachers who want an easy way out - not parents and teachers who think girls are 'better' than boys.




Well dang, I had a bunch of thoughts forming in my head that I wanted to inflict upon this thread, but here you've gone and expressed most of them yourself .

I'm an elementary school teacher. The lessons and activities I use and see being used by the other teachers at my school are leagues ahead of what I experienced as an elementary school student in the 1980s with regards to activity level and diversity of teaching methods being used in any one class period.

When I was earning my TEFL certification, it couldn't have been made more clear that different people learn in different ways, and it's one of our responsibilities as teachers to try to incorporate as many teaching tactics as we can to try and reach as many students as possible, as effectively as possible. Unfortunately, even when doing that, some students still slip through the cracks, particularly as class sizes get larger. I can better tend to the needs of each student in my classes with only five or size students than I can in those with 20+. 

It eats me up that I can't provide that absolute ideal learning environment for each and every student in all of my classes, but I try my hardest to strike up the most effective balance as possible, and that's what my training encouraged me to do. What my training didn't tell me at any point, though, was that boys and girls learn differently, need to be instructed differently, or are superior/inferior to one another in any capacity. Some girls are quiet and docile, others can't stay in their seats for two minutes. Some _boys_ are quiet and docile, others can't stay in their seats for two minutes.

Other random thoughts: 

Yes, kids need some time to run around and be crazy kids. IMO, that time is AT HOME . Sort of tongue in cheek there (I know I looked forward to recess as a kid, though I hated PE), but damn. Some kids are just TOO fargin' crazy .

I too think kids in the US are overmedicated. Medicating for behavioral or learning disorders just doesn't seem to be a thing here in Korea, and though I've definitely had some students who I really thought could benefit from medication, I'm certain the number is MUCH lower than the number of medicated students would be if the same kids were in the US. (EDIT: And note I said the _students_ would benefit from it, not the parents or the teachers. It can help the students focus and learn, and when they aren't being disruptive, that helps the other kids learn, too.)

On that topic, why are people talking like it's the schools/school systems medicating the kids? I'm not being rhetorical, I really want to know. I thought it was parents who took their kids to see doctors and then had them medicated. Is it school psychologists attached to the School Boards prescribing them against the parents' consent or something? I always thought the parents were the ones making those decisions.


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## Explorer (Jun 4, 2014)

In the wake of the Isla Vista murders, I've been doing all kinds of reading and research, and thought it might be good to bump this topic. 

I was looking at this fact sheet:

http://www.padv.org/documents/DVFactSheet.pdf

And it just seems inconceivable to me that some engage so heavily in denying the very existence of the huge amount of aggregate data, and claiming there is only anecdotal data behind these studies.

#NotAllMen are the aggressors, but it's clear that #YesAllWomen are fearful. 

I've also been thinking about one of the justifications(?) in particular in this topic for ignoring the data, male-on-male sexual assault.

I see that idea as supporting a larger idea.

If, as we are asked to, we include the statistics for institutional rape (in prisons, and by fellow service personnel during military service), then one is definitely building a case that most of the offenders are... male. I know, not what these individuals want to focus on or even bring attention to, but if you want to stop the problem of sexual assault, you need to identify and focus on the ones perpetrating the sexual assaults, who are mostly male. 

And protecting potential victims of sexual assault, while punishing those who engage in assault and/or who facilitate such behavior, should be the priority, right? And it doesn't matter what sex the offender is. 

Remember, those institutions where rape is prevalent were set up by men. Is that part of the problem? Those commanding officers who refuse to start courts martial for sexual assaults, also overwhelmingly male. (If there are any female military commanders who have engaged in cover-ups, I'm really not aware of them, but there might be a non-zero total.)

Here's an example of how institutions don't think there is a problem:

The Montana Judge Who Blamed a 14-Year-Old for Her Own Rape Will be Censured - The Wire

At this point, when even Cracked.com has a great and thorough exploration of the thinking behind website cited in the original post of this topic, it's pretty hard for the average person to ignore or deny the problem. And the exceptions... scare me.


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## rectifryer (Jun 4, 2014)

Holy cow there is so much text in this thread I don't even recognize it anymore. You people are novelists.


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## asher (Jun 4, 2014)

To Cracked's credit, they have always been capable of putting out really on-point pieces. They just run _so_ much other stuff it gets lost.

ed: reposting from other thread, a very excellent essay on the Isla Vista stuff.

http://billmoyers.com/2014/06/02/the-feminist-battle-after-the-isla-vista-massacre/


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## crg123 (Jun 5, 2014)

lemniscate said:


> If we were all equal, we'd be all hermaphroditic and have the same skin pigmentation, among other things.



what the what?


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## Explorer (Jun 5, 2014)

I'll translate that for you:

"Ah, I'll confuse them by trolling and saying that equal rights = physically identical! They won't know what hit them by the time I'm... Hey! I got banned!" 

*laugh*


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## Necris (Jun 5, 2014)

lemniscate said:


> If we were all equal, we'd be all hermaphroditic and have the same skin pigmentation, among other things.


Somehow I missed that post the first time around, but holy crap.

If you ever wanted to know to identify yourself as both a sexist and a racist, and who knows what else ("_*If*_ we were all equal..." really leaves the door open), in less than twenty words without stating it explicitly, there you go.

If someone states that the only way for all people to be equal is for everyone to have the same skin pigmentation they have unwittingly stated their belief that people of one skin color are actually superior to those of another.

If they claim only way for people to be equal is for everyone to be a hermaphrodite that says that the person believes that those people with one set of sex organs is superior to the other.


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## TedEH (Jun 5, 2014)

Necris said:


> Somehow I missed that post the first time around, but holy crap.
> 
> If you ever wanted to know to identify yourself as both a sexist and a racist, and who knows what else ("_*If*_ we were all equal..." really leaves the door open), in less than twenty words without stating it explicitly, there you go.
> 
> ...



At the risk of being misinterpreted or attacked for saying this- saying that two things are not equal doesn't mean one is superior or inferior to the other, it's just a statement that the two are not the same. Genders, races, etc. are not perfectly equivalent and interchangeable. Using those differences to put someone down is sexist/racist/whatever-ist, identifying them is not.

"men and women have a different life expectancy" -> not sexist.
"men are smarter than women" -> is sexist.

I can't find the original comment, so maybe I'm missing context, but we could have interpreted what was said as "because not everyone is identical, there will always be ways to twist the differences between us into offensive remarks".... but we choose not to interpret it that way for some reason, even though it looks like that was the intended sentiment.


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## asher (Jun 5, 2014)

That statement implies we all must be the same to be equal though, which is bullshit.


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## estabon37 (Jun 5, 2014)

rectifryer said:


> Holy cow there is so much text in this thread I don't even recognize it anymore. You people are novelists.



Yeah, I was just wondering what kind of twat would drop a 1500+ word essay/post in a forum ... and then I noticed it was me. I'm the twat. Sorry, all y'all.

As for the 'equality' conversation, it's tricky. The two major political ideologies agree that equality is important but define them differently: equality of opportunity (liberalism - you're given a decent start in life, then left to your own devices) vs equality of outcome (socialism - you're given what everybody else is given, and whether or not this is sufficient depends on the prosperity of the state). This is of course a huge simplification of complex ideological theories, but it'll do for the purposes of this conversation. 

The idea that human equality might only be achievable genetically through all of us eventually becoming hermaphroditic, raceless, virtually identical sentient beings seems to me a kind of 'genetic equality of outcome'. I'm no geneticist, but it strikes me as a bit of a weird idea being that our evolution seems to have gone in the opposite direction thus far - have we ever stopped diversifying? And even if genetic equality of outcome was seen as a decent end-goal, how long would that take?

I think this is why 'genetic equality of opportunity' (for lack of a comparative term) is closer to what societies actually practice, as it's not only conceptually easier, it's also something that can change in a relatively short period of time. The most obvious example is women's suffrage: it was not a guarantee that women's lives would become better as a result of being allowed to vote, but it gave them the same political opportunities as men, and so decades later substantive social equality (ability to work in formerly restricted fields, entrace into political representation, opportunity to be horrifically insulted on the internet by just like the dudes) could be drawn from simple equality of opportunity. A lot has changed for women in western societies in the last 100 years, and it was all because they were given the opportunity to make the changes. This is not the case in many countries, including some that are comparatively far less genetically diverse than 'more equal' nations, and it shows. 

Was this post too long? It was. Goddammit. I need lessons in being concise. Uh ... what Asher said ... but needlessly complicated.


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## flint757 (Jun 5, 2014)

Came across something in my facebook feed earlier today about a female teacher having a sexual relationship with a 16 year old male student. Guess what all the dudes are saying? ".... yeah", "where were these teachers when I was a kid", etc., etc. Guess what MRM guys, you are your own worst enemy for equality, in particular guys who only think with their dicks which is apparently the majority based on the comments I'm reading. Sad thing is if the roles were reversed people would be horrified and there'd be a witch hunt over it. 

Mind you, I'm not saying, "Oh she's a woman and she's getting it so easy" because that isn't even her fault (although sleeping with the kid obviously was). It's the fault of men in our society who simply see nothing wrong with such things. Kind of like the south park episode or that recent Adam Sandler movie that came out reflecting a scenario just like this one and glorifying it. I think if you follow the trail back for most issues that affect men you'll find men typically being a part of the root cause. 

https://www.facebook.com/thehowardsternshow/posts/249500191840332


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## asher (Jun 6, 2014)

Explorer said:


> I'll translate that for you:
> 
> "Ah, I'll confuse them by trolling and saying that equal rights = physically identical! They won't know what hit them by the time I'm... Hey! I got banned!"
> 
> *laugh*



What's funny is that it happened a while ago, and yet a bunch of us (myself included) are still replying to it


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## bebbe (Jun 7, 2014)

I'm in Sweden, one of (if not the) the most feminist affected countries in Europe. My experience is that the University environment is the only sanctuary where people are still judged based on their own merits.


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## bebbe (Jun 7, 2014)

Sweden (located in northern Europe) was run by a socialistic government for decades and it has formed a basis for a massive left wing domination of public media which in turn has served as a strong lever for a strong feminist movement.

The main stream media is filled with left oriented journalist propaganda expressing insidiously contempt for everything male, which unfortunately effects those most susceptible, ie children. Boys are left with no role-models, grades for male students have dropped considerably resulting in an overwhelming dominance of female university students. Basically a new lower class is being formed..


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## bebbe (Jun 7, 2014)

Sorry I can't stop writing about this..very sad phenomenon.

I totally agree of course with the concept of equal social opportunities for everyone including men and women, but if that is a foundation of feminism it has failed miserably at least here in Sweden. 

Somewhat intertwined with socialism it confers a general feeling of that someone else is responsible and to be blamed for individual failures in life, effectively choking individual ambition. Seems like the US is heading the same way..


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## Chokey Chicken (Jun 7, 2014)

I really don't want to get into it, and I stopped reading after the first page. (Which is pretty old at this point.) But this was all started because a men's rights page? Negative effects of feminism? While we're at it, how about we try and reverse the negative effects of civil rights in general. God forbid anybody wants to be treated like a human being. 
Yeah, feminism needs to be stopped and have its effects reversed. Women need to feel guilty when they're raped. I mean, it's all our faults! 

The only thing that needs said when it comes to men's rights is that a white cis gendered man can walk down the streets with literally no fears. He doesn't have to worry about being raped. He doesn't have to worry about being the "wrong" color and have people watch over him because "that honkey's gonna steal something. Honkey's always steal stuff." He doesn't have to worry about being mocked and harassed because they're trans. Basically, white cis gendered men have very little to complain about in the equality argument. 

Some folks really need to educate themselves on what feminism actually is. If you're truly against actual feminism, then you're a horrible person. 

Again, I wrote this after only reading a portion of the first page, which is a few months old at this point. What I've said may have already been said, or even derailed to something completely different. Just felt like publicly mentioning how ....ing stupid I think men's rights activism is.


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## Explorer (Jun 7, 2014)

I found that statistic about Sweden to be very interesting.

http://www.government.se/content/1/c6/14/91/69/04632432.pdf

Quite a few of the materials I've skimmed about shift in education support that females apply themselves more to studying than males, across all the years of education. That's based on self-reported numbers, using the students' responses, so it's interesting that someone would identify themselves as slacking off and not applying themselves, but you can't argue that they themselves feel that they are or are not putting in the effort. 

It's also interesting that not only are females growing in success, but that they also are applying more for higher education. If everyone who applied then graduated, then females would have higher rates just because they have greater numbers. 

I suspect that males have more absenteeism, but don't have time to read further right now. 

One more statistic to toss in... apparently in Sweden, of the non-transferable hours every parent gets for family care, male parents only take advantage of 24% of them. That's just leaving money on the table. Why? Is it related to knuckling down (or lack thereof) in getting necessary things done? 

What's most interesting to me was that a lot of the opinion websites which popped up when I searched on the Swedish statistics also expressed anger at not being able to criticise immigrants and LGBT individuals under Swedish law (which I suspect is actually about hate speech, but I'll read up on what the law actually says later), had lots of links to stories where blacks and other races committed crimes, and so on. I'd rather find dry academic facts. *laugh* However, I'll be most interested to finally find if the education thing might be related to changing attitudes and laws which enforce equality *coupled* with males who feel that they no longer have a fair shake. I guess primary school success rates would demonstrate if there is an age component, and possibly therefore a link to before/after social attitudes in Sweden.

I'm not thinking about that from a vacuum, but from knowing what happens here in the US. Gee, anyone remember that breakfast cereal ad which had a biracial family? Then all the racist underbelly of the US came oozing out, as racists put up all kinds of hate about a white and black couple having the temerity to have offspring, and that the company dared to put up a commercial with that crap. *laugh*

Anyway, I'll do more reading later....


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## asher (Jun 7, 2014)

So sounds like what parts of formerly dominant groups do when they realize they're losing their position over Those People.


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## Clydefrog (Jun 8, 2014)

MRA groups are inherently sexist, racist, and self defeating in their own goals.

MRA groups don't care about black men. MRA groups don't care about gay men. MRA groups are only interested in helping keep a stranglehold on the straight white male power group. At some point, the PUA group came into a position of power within the MRA scene and it has never looked back.

A true MRA group would care about pushing gender equality. They would care about tearing down the "be a man", "man up" stereotype. They would be against pressuring little boys to conform to their ideal vision of masculinity (which, if you don't fall under, they don't care about you).

A true MRA group would be heavily involved in prison reforms of all type.

A true MRA group would be an outspoken advocate of gay men and their current standing inequality in society.

A true MRA group would be at the forefront tearing down all preconceived notions of masculinity (boys don't cry, male nurses, male flight attendants).

A true MRA group would champion the cause of income inequality between white men and minority men, and as an extension women of all colors.

It would fight against the "man is a protector" bullshit that promotes aggression against even the dumbest shit (being hit on by a gay man, wife/girlfriend being looked at).

But nope. Instead, the mainstream MRA group wants to demonize women and feminists everywhere. To them, WOMEN are the problem, not the way they treat them or act.

MRAs would advocate for rape victims, male and female alike. But they're usually too busy blaming women for getting raped because of how they were dressed, what they were drinking, or being in the wrong place and just being a woman. Guess what guys? Women get raped and it's never their fault. Ever. EVER. 

If you are against feminism, it's because you don't understand what feminism is. Let me repeat; if your idea of feminism is "feminazi", you do not know what feminism is and you are doing yourself a disservice by not educating yourself.

Not addressing anyone in particular, just distilling my feelings into a post.


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## Jakke (Jun 8, 2014)

Would anyone who felt it appropriate to call me "misogynist trolling garbage" have the stones to do it to my face?

No one? Well, maybe I'm not the garbage...


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## Chokey Chicken (Jun 8, 2014)

Jakke said:


> Would anyone who felt it appropriate to call me "misogynist trolling garbage" have the stones to do it to my face?
> 
> No one? Well, maybe I'm not the garbage...



I can't recall anything you specifically said, and I'm not going back to look and get myself worked up, but if you said misogynistic things, then I'd gladly call you misogynistic garbage to your face. (I doubt you're trolling even if your point of view were flawed. Different points of view do not make trolls.) You wouldn't be the first person I called misogynistic garbage to their faces either. 

I will however say how silly it is to call people out like that. There are people from Sweden, Germany, France, Canada, and even localized, from all over the United States. Of course they're not going to personally come to you face to face because of an internet debate. A lot of them, however, would gladly promote which side of the fence they're on in a public setting, particularly in a debate setting, and hopefully in day to day life. (though that's unlikely with how people tend to avoid conflict, even if they see it.) 

tl:dr If you're being misogynistic, you're misogynistic garbage. If you're not being misogynistic, then you're not misogynistic garbage. Pretty simple.


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## Jakke (Jun 8, 2014)

Chokey Chicken said:


> I can't recall anything you specifically said, and I'm not going back to look and get myself worked up, but if you said misogynistic things, then I'd gladly call you misogynistic garbage to your face. (I doubt you're trolling even if your point of view were flawed. Different points of view do not make trolls.) You wouldn't be the first person I called misogynistic garbage to their faces either.



I can guarantee that I have not said something misogynistic (as in hatred or distrust of women), I most certainly am a misogynist according to some feminists, which to many of them is the same as "is not a feminist, or is not an sufficiently radical feminist" (there are several liberal feminist who've been called misogynists for calling out the radicals' behaviour) 



Chokey Chicken said:


> I will however say how silly it is to call people out like that. There are people from Sweden, Germany, France, Canada, and even localized, from all over the United States. Of course they're not going to personally come to you face to face because of an internet debate. A lot of them, however, would gladly promote which side of the fence they're on in a public setting, particularly in a debate setting, and hopefully in day to day life. (though that's unlikely with how people tend to avoid conflict, even if they see it.)



Oh? You mean as I was totally not called out for for an imagined "crime"?

The only way to deflect shaming, hyperbolic, and/or "master suppression techniques" is to question them.

I do however think that you are a bit too literal in your interpretation. "Saying it to someone's face" in a forum context means to address me directly (preferably with a refutation instead of name-calling). If there are any Swedes who'd like to do the real "to my face", that'd also be appropriate, as that is where I live.



Chokey Chicken said:


> tl:dr If you're being misogynistic, you're misogynistic garbage. If you're not being misogynistic, then you're not misogynistic garbage. Pretty simple.



Again, misogyny to the general population and misgyny to an angry feminist means completely different things, which means that you can't really claim it's that simple. I'm am not a misogynist by far, yet I have been attacked as one. The logical implication is that the person calling me one without a justificaton is wrong.


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## flint757 (Jun 8, 2014)

Jakke said:


> Would anyone who felt it appropriate to call me "misogynist trolling garbage" have the stones to do it to my face?
> 
> No one? Well, maybe I'm not the garbage...



I like you jakke, but complaining about rep is, as you know, not allowed so I'd probably tread lightly. Anyone who bothers communicating their point of view via the rep system is probably not interested in a thought provoking conversation to bother confronting them anyhow. That's been my experience at least. It's a rather large assumption though, either way to just assume that an 'angry feminist' is the person who negged you.

Nice to see you posting again around these parts though, haven't heard anything in awhile.


As it pertains to the conversation, I've seen my fair share of both rational and irrational feminists in my short life on this planet, but the majority I have come across have been sane, rational beings who want equality for all, not just women. Maybe in Sweden that's a little different. That I wouldn't know for more obvious reasons. 

As for MRA, I have yet to see a single person who carries that banner who was truly looking for equality at all. I don't mean that people who fight for issues that affect men are by default doing anything wrong, but the group has kind of taken an odd turn towards a lot of bigotry. That isn't to say there aren't legitimate concerns that need to be dealt with either, but more that the movement associated with it is mostly poison for any sort of legitimate action to ever occur.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, most issues that men deal with today are directly and indirectly typically caused by other men. I've never heard a woman in my entire life say a man cannot be raped, but I've heard plenty of guys make those claims. My last post shows a similar sentiment where inappropriate teacher/student relationships are applauded when the teacher is female as it fulfills some twisted sex fantasy for other men. It is the mentality of the public which shapes public policy and most men do a disservice towards our own kind by completely dismissing these types of events.

I think when it comes to gender related issues you and I probably only really agree with each other that the wage gap isn't as significant as it is perceived, or rather the differences are not significantly driven by solely sexism (although I don't doubt it plays a small part), but many factors, some of which are more about choices rather than actual sexism. However, Edika had brought up an interesting point (don't remember which specific thread, maybe here) that I had not considered before. Society and educators do tend to push women into fields that by default don't pay better, maybe because in the eyes of other educators they feel they can better fulfill those rolls (I don't really know). If that tends to be the case that is, in a way, unintentional (or maybe intentional) sexism. What I do believe is in this one particular section of the conversation there are simply too many factors to know absolutely what is at fault here. I won't go too in depth considering I'm fairly certain I've already discussed this intensely already in several other threads though.

[EDIT]


found the post:

http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/4060955-post85.html


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## BucketheadRules (Jun 8, 2014)

Clydefrog said:


> MRA groups are inherently sexist, racist, and self defeating in their own goals.
> 
> MRA groups don't care about black men. MRA groups don't care about gay men. MRA groups are only interested in helping keep a stranglehold on the straight white male power group. At some point, the PUA group came into a position of power within the MRA scene and it has never looked back.
> 
> ...



All of this is absolutely fair enough, and I wholeheartedly agree with almost all of it.

That being said, I'm not entirely at one with feminism so I want to address the last bit. Don't get me wrong, I'm just as concerned with gender equality as the next person, but that's just it - I don't think feminism is the way to go about it. Nor do I think MRA is.

If we want gender equality to happen, it needs to be from an angle that recognises that each gender is affected by sexism, in different ways. The girls I know who are feminists (none are particularly extreme in their views) usually seem to focus their vitriol on their personal experiences of sexual harassment and being catcalled, which is fair enough - I can understand how it would be unpleasant. They say their goal is "equal rights" - but I've never seen any of them acknowledge that, for example, 40% of domestic violence victims are male, but that this huge number of men don't really get the help or attention they deserve in most cases - not to mention that a common reaction to male victims of abuse is laughter, not compassion and support (as should be the case regardless of gender). You'd think people who "want equal rights" would be more concerned by that!

Feminism IMO isn't the way to achieve gender equality, because it's biased by its very nature and doesn't often take into account that men are affected by sexism too. The exact same goes for MRA (except with the gender roles reversed, of course). Both are misguided IMO, perhaps MRA more so given the fiercely unpleasant nature of many of its adherents where feminists often tend to be more reasonable. I want gender equality to be a reality, but I think we need to reassess how we approach it. I mean... doesn't making feminism synonymous with equal rights kind of imply that men are always in the wrong?

Hope this makes sense and I'm not digging a hole. I never feel entirely comfortable talking about this topic because I'm always very worried that I haven't put my views across correctly and I might be thought of as a misogynist - when nothing could be further from the truth.


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## flint757 (Jun 8, 2014)

The major issue with fixing men's rights issues is that men make up the audience socially abusing other men: for being 'pussies' if they are beat by their wife, for not being macho enough, for complaining about getting some from an older lady at an inappropriate age, etc. I have no doubt that women in some cases make up the audience that ridicules men, but the majority in my experience is men being the perpetrators. 

I don't hide my feelings and 'keep it in' publicly because I'm afraid of other women's reactions, although in a sexual context it does seem some women find it very unappealing, but because other guy LOVE to ridicule other guys for being 'pansy's' or for any social/physical shortcoming. As an example, I'm fairly short sitting at 5'3", girl's have almost never made fun of my height yet the first joke out of any guys mouth in a social setting is almost always a short joke. 

If we are to actually change things for the better in regards to removing sexist policies that may exist against men then we have to make a change socially first. Stop ridiculing people for being gay, stop flinching if a gay guy hits on you, don't gawk because someone is metro-sexual, stop all the macho BS or the idea that if you basically aren't a pig in public then you aren't a 'real' man, etc. These things are self-induced by other men in our society, not by politicians or women. From what I've seen women who conform to the same idea of what is manly only do so because it is brow beat into them early on same as the guys. Someone needs to break the cycle.

Maybe all of that is just more of a symptom that I need to get away from the south though.


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## BucketheadRules (Jun 8, 2014)

flint757 said:


> The major issue with fixing men's rights issues is that men make up the audience socially abusing other men: for being 'pussies' if they are beat by their wife, for not being macho enough, for complaining about getting some from an older lady at an inappropriate age, etc. I have no doubt that women in some cases make up the audience that ridicules men, but the majority in my experience is men being the perpetrators.
> 
> I don't hide my feelings and 'keep it in' publicly because I'm afraid of other women's reactions, although in a sexual context it does seem some women find it very unappealing, but because other guy LOVE to ridicule other guys for being 'pansy's' or for any social/physical shortcoming. As an example, I'm fairly short sitting at 5'3", girl's have almost never made fun of my height yet the first joke out of any guys mouth in a social setting is almost always a short joke.
> 
> ...



I suppose so actually, never really thought of it that way. We certainly don't help ourselves 

I do think my points were worth making though.


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## flint757 (Jun 8, 2014)

BucketheadRules said:


> I suppose so actually, never really thought of it that way. We certainly don't help ourselves
> 
> I do think my points were worth making though.



They were. I think the reason feminism is used currently is simply because, in a political context, women are facing more pressing problems. Narrowing the focus allows for more direct results. If an umbrella gets too big it simply becomes ineffective as a tool for change. 

In our current political climate in the US we have politicians trying to make abortion nearly impossible, birth control an optional part of healthcare (meanwhile no one has a problem with Viagra ), etc. that the main focus has been, since feminism's inception, on mostly women issues, hence the name. When the term was first coined it was absolutely imperative that the focus be solely on women's rights. I don't honestly think we are to a point where shifting focus completely is most apt personally, but when the time comes I could see the potential need for a re-branding of sorts.

Either way feminism doesn't just outright ignore all other issues, even if it's main focus is mostly on the ones affecting women most. Using the domestic abuse as an example, if 40% of domestic abuse is against the husband/boyfriend then 60% is against the girlfriend/wife right? That is most likely why the focus is mostly on that despite the fact that it is absolutely an issue that needs addressing. I really do believe that men have a harder time finding help or even having the guts to ask for help because of the way our society is programmed though. We fix that and I think the discussion can be pushed forward much more easily.


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## Jakke (Jun 8, 2014)

flint757 said:


> I like you jakke, but complaining about rep is, as you know, not allowed so I'd probably tread lightly. Anyone who bothers communicating their point of view via the rep system is probably not interested in a thought provoking conversation to bother confronting them anyhow. That's been my experience at least. It's a rather large assumption though, either way to just assume that an 'angry feminist' is the person who negged you.



Yeah, I know, but I feel that I was careful enough to not complain about the rep itself, but rather the sentiment. I generally don't care about rep, but I'd prefer to meet accusations and attacks head on, so that I'll have a chance to defend myself. I am, as a lot of you older members know, not a misogynist, so of course I'm pissed when I get attacked and can't defend myself.
I don't have undeniable proof for my assertion, but come on, Occam's Razor...



flint757 said:


> Nice to see you posting again around these parts though, haven't heard anything in awhile.



Cheers man, I just haven't seen anything interesting lately. The stuff I've seen in P&CE have mainly been fairly americanocentric, and therefore not really something that impacts my life. I do keep an eye on that forum though. I suppose that it has to do with that during most of my life (adult life at least) I have been naively convinced that if I only make an argument rational enough, I could at least make people entertain my side. I have realized though that people don't care about rationality, and that has jaded me slightly (might be the infamous pedophilia thread that almost broke me in that regard). I'm still an optimist about the human condition, but I have become more wary of getting into heated discussions, for natural reasons. I'm planning on getting back on the horse though




flint757 said:


> As it pertains to the conversation, I've seen my fair share of both rational and irrational feminists in my short life on this planet, but the majority I have come across have been sane, rational beings who want equality for all, not just women. Maybe in Sweden that's a little different. That I wouldn't know for more obvious reasons.



I like liberal feminists, the kind that view women as having a personal responsibility to take place in the public conversation, and not blame everything on an unfalsifiable patriarchy. The disagreement I have with them is mainly one of interpretation, and we can usually part under the classic "well, we have different political views". The feminist conversation in Sweden however is rather one of a radical monologue. Liberal feminists are usually considered rape apologists, or even MRA:s, while the radicals are the norm. 
It's fairly unpleasant.



flint757 said:


> I've said it before and I'll say it again, most issues that men deal with today are directly and indirectly typically caused by other men. I've never heard a woman in my entire life say a man cannot be raped, but I've heard plenty of guys make those claims.



Then our experiences differ.



flint757 said:


> I think when it comes to gender related issues you and I probably only really agree with each other that the wage gap isn't as significant as it is perceived, or rather the differences are not significantly driven by solely sexism (although I don't doubt it plays a small part), but many factors, some of which are more about choices rather than actual sexism.



I'm no libertarian, but I would be much more inclined to chalk it down to personal choice.



flint757 said:


> However, Edika had brought up an interesting point (don't remember which specific thread, maybe here) that I had not considered before. Society and educators do tend to push women into fields that by default don't pay better, maybe because in the eyes of other educators they feel they can better fulfill those rolls (I don't really know).



I'm not entirely prepared to accept it as a "pushing" though. If we view psychological research, we see that personality traits such as "nurturing" is over-represented among women cross-culturally. I would say that if we view the wage gap as a problem, then we should raise the salaries for nurses and teachers instead of trying to push women into engineering, as empirical evidence shows us that women tend not to choose that. What we know about men is that they tend to enjoy competition, and the ability to provide for themselves and others. If we raise the salaries in those fields, I can guarantee that we would attract more men to them too.



flint757 said:


> If that tends to be the case that is, in a way, unintentional (or maybe intentional) sexism.



Agreed




flint757 said:


> What I do believe is in this one particular section of the conversation there are simply too many factors to know absolutely what is at fault here. I won't go too in depth considering I'm fairly certain I've already discussed this intensely already in several other threads though.



We sure have, and I am really bored of this conversation that in lack of falsifiable empirical evidence only comes down to ideology. What I can argue against today is the view of feminism as the "only true ideology", and that people in disagreement are misogynists. That's a simple empirical observation.


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## fenderbender4 (Jun 8, 2014)

I mean this as a serious question, but aren't sex and gender different concepts? The OP used them interchangeably. I thought they were different but not sure how. I could be wrong. Any gender studies majors?


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## asher (Jun 8, 2014)

fenderbender4 said:


> I mean this as a serious question, but aren't sex and gender different concepts? The OP used them interchangeably. I thought they were different but not sure how. I could be wrong. Any gender studies majors?



Yes. One is strictly biological, one is not.


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## Jakke (Jun 8, 2014)

asher said:


> Yes. One is strictly biological, one is not.



More of a gray area. There are some aspect of gender identity that seems to be biological, and some that are not.

One could of course construct the definition of gender to only encompass socially constructed aspects, but that would be confirmation bias.


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## asher (Jun 9, 2014)

No, I know. Strictly vs. partially, I could have been more clear.


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## Jakke (Jun 9, 2014)

An interesting point is that the strictly biological viewpoint is something that I have only heard laymen and social scientists claim people believe in. I have never heard/seen an evolutionary biologist, evolutionary psychologist, developmental biologist or a neuropsychologist claim it.

It's actually quite an interesting strawman, and the simple answer is that there are a lot of discrete differences between the sexes and genders (discrete as in measurable). The problem with using it as a generalization is that they are only averages. This means that they are useful in dealing with populations, or how the average person is/might be, but rages on a spectrum of somewhat helpful to completely useless for dealing with a specific person in front of you. The average person on earth is a han chinese man. It's useful for a population study, but it is not very smart to expect everyone you meet to be a han chinese man. It might be useful for example to know that women experience pain as more intense than men do, and that they therefore require more painkillers when in medical care. This is due to that being a woman also correlates highly to having a lot more nerve endings than being a man does.


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## Explorer (Jun 9, 2014)

I see an interesting parallel in the USA between the framing issues in the abortion discussion (pro-life versus pro-choice, the latter of which has people who wouldn't choose abortion themselves, but don't think they are qualified to make the choice for someone else), marriage equality versus "gay marriage," and, in this case, the attempt on the part of conservatives to to use "feminist" to label those who fought for passage of the following:


 *Section 1.* Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
 *Section 2.* The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
 *Section 3.* This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.
Those three sections are from the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the US Constitution. Nowhere did it mention women, which means men could use it as well. 

Interestingly in the last example: After many Republicans (among others) insisted it was only feminists who wanted the legislation passed, many men said that if "feminist" was the label which indicated you agreed with equal rights, then they were happy to be labeled a feminist. 

So, when people agree that they embrace the definition of "feminist" which was pejoratively used by the opponents of the Equal Rights Amendment, historically that's what they mean in the US.

And due to that same US historical precedent, people who reject what the conservatives themselves defined as feminism, the same definition then embraced by liberals, are rejecting those equal rights. 

That's just in the US, but as a cultural definition it's been pretty robust. Although some throw in red herrings by insisting that US feminism also invariably contains the feature of denouncing "the Man/the Patriarchy/all males," that's just false. For example, I do agree with everyone having equal rights, meaning I fit the US historical defintion of "feminist," but I don't denounce "the Man/the Patriarchy/all males." I might be the only US male who feels this way, but even one counterexample means that one cannot make a sweeping definition of "feminism" in that way.

----

Lastly, I do find the following interesting, if memory serves correctly:

I believe that someone previously argued enthusiastically that one shouldn't face consequences for whatever chance led to someone being born or developing in a particular way regarding their preferred nonconsenting object of sexual gratification, with said way possibly leading to harm of innocents.

And now it looks like that same person is now abandoning that position, but this time with a group which is just their sex because of the chance of their birth or development in a particular way, and yet when there isn't a potential harm to innocents.


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## Grand Moff Tim (Jun 9, 2014)

Explorer said:


> Lastly, I do find the following interesting, if memory serves correctly:
> 
> I believe that someone previously argued enthusiastically that one shouldn't face consequences for whatever chance led to someone being born or developing in a particular way regarding their preferred nonconsenting object of sexual gratification, with said way possibly leading to harm of innocents.




I'm afraid your memory isn't serving you correctly, unless mine is the one that's failing.

As I recall, what that "someone" had argued (and I don't remember it being argued particularly "enthusiastically") was that all child molesters are pedophiles, but not all pedophiles are necessarily child molesters, since they don't become molesters until they become offenders. 

I believe I've seen _you_ showing people the flaw in using the logic:

Ducks are birds.
Therefore, all birds are ducks.

All that "someone" did was point out that that's what people are doing when they equate pedophilia with child molestation, when logically that may not always be true.

That being the case, he saw the _justified_ stigma against child molesters as potentially keeping non-offending pedophiles from trying to seek the help they need, out of fear of being punished by the law or by society.


Oh, I also remember you taking that to mean that that person must in fact be a child molesting pedophile himself, and that you were thinking about notifying his local authorities. How's my memory serve me there?

That "someone" is of course welcome to step in and correct me if I'm putting words in his mouth. No, it wasn't me, anyone here just hearing about this for the first time. I just remember it vividly because it was such an absurd exchange.


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## BucketheadRules (Jun 9, 2014)

flint757 said:


> They were. I think the reason feminism is used currently is simply because, in a political context, women are facing more pressing problems. Narrowing the focus allows for more direct results. If an umbrella gets too big it simply becomes ineffective as a tool for change.
> 
> In our current political climate in the US we have politicians trying to make abortion nearly impossible, birth control an optional part of healthcare (meanwhile no one has a problem with Viagra ), etc. that the main focus has been, since feminism's inception, on mostly women issues, hence the name. When the term was first coined it was absolutely imperative that the focus be solely on women's rights. I don't honestly think we are to a point where shifting focus completely is most apt personally, but when the time comes I could see the potential need for a re-branding of sorts.
> 
> Either way feminism doesn't just outright ignore all other issues, even if it's main focus is mostly on the ones affecting women most. Using the domestic abuse as an example, if 40% of domestic abuse is against the husband/boyfriend then 60% is against the girlfriend/wife right? That is most likely why the focus is mostly on that despite the fact that it is absolutely an issue that needs addressing. I really do believe that men have a harder time finding help or even having the guts to ask for help because of the way our society is programmed though. We fix that and I think the discussion can be pushed forward much more easily.



Sorry, only just got round to replying.

Obviously the fact that 60% of domestic violence is committed against women is awful, but 40% is still a pretty huge share of it, and the proportion in which help is given is totally skewed. Men don't have shelters they can rely on, whereas women do, and the fact that domestic violence is suffered by lots of men doesn't really ever seem to be reported. Perhaps if it were publicised more, there might be more understanding surrounding the issue and men wouldn't be laughed at? I understand that it's often men who mock other men for being beaten by their wives, but it's not exclusive by any means. 

I once saw a video in which a male and female actor played an arguing couple having a fight in the street. They were the only actors - passers-by in the street were unaware of what was really going on. First, the man attacked and started hitting the woman. Obviously, people started crowding round, telling him to get away from her. One woman started calling the police.

Later, or in a different place, they staged another fight but with the gender roles reversed. The woman started hitting and abusing the man, and absolutely no-one came to his defence. Men, women and children alike walked by, doing nothing except stopping to look at what was going on. People sitting on benches nearby were grinning, pointing and laughing.

Why should that ever be the case?

I'm not contesting the women's issues you mention above, such as the abortion thing. Those need our attention too, immediately and fully. And I know that at the time feminism began, it was extremely important that women's rights were the only thing to focus on. And it's still imperative in some less developed parts of the world, where women barely have rights at all. There's still a way to go, as women do still suffer as a result of sexism, but men do as well - in different ways, usually. We should treat all sexism as a problem regardless of the gender affected. I want to see some of the very real, very serious issues that affect men to be afforded equal respect and given the attention they need - but not to the detriment of women's issues.


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## flint757 (Jun 9, 2014)

Completely agree. It's a serious problem that needs serious addressing. I also think the best solution is to make these issues much more public and for the public to also take such things much more seriously (that's the harder part). 

The problem is it isn't a legal issue, but a social one. We have to reprogram the way society views men for people to begin taking such events more seriously, women and men alike. That is quite a hurdle, much like moving past racism. Talking about it more is probably a good first step, but someone really needs to make some noise for anything real to happen I think. It is quite sad that men who are abused by whomever have nowhere to go for help and are often met with laughter rather than compassion. 

I guess the real question is what's the best way to approach the problem?


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## BucketheadRules (Jun 9, 2014)

Agreed. As for the last question... dunno  

I think men are often afraid to talk about these things for fear of being shouted down, but that is something that certainly needs to change.


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## fenderbender4 (Jun 9, 2014)

I don't think it's a fear of being shut down, but possibly more a fear of our own self-condemnation. Along with regards to women's rights and men's roles, the fact not talked about, is the modern/North American ideals and definitions of masculinity. I think physical assault perpetrated by women to men is tied up with that issue. Our sense (at least my own ignorance) makes me, on a gut level, to not view the man as being harmed (alright one could argue here I am also being disrespecting to women as viewing them as weak and incapable of harm). This is just not the case though and I do believe that there are probably many cases of domestic abuse, where men are the victims but out of both the dismissal received by society, as well as feelings of guilt, it ends up not being addressed. Similar, though less extreme, than "male-victim" sexual assault. As much shame as women have coming forward about sexual assault, can you imagine what a man must feel who's been sexually assaulted?


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## UnderTheSign (Jun 10, 2014)

flint757 said:


> Completely agree. It's a serious problem that needs serious addressing. I also think the best solution is to make these issues much more public and for the public to also take such things much more seriously (that's the harder part).
> 
> The problem is it isn't a legal issue, but a social one. We have to reprogram the way society views men for people to begin taking such events more seriously, women and men alike. That is quite a hurdle, much like moving past racism. Talking about it more is probably a good first step, but someone really needs to make some noise for anything real to happen I think. It is quite sad that men who are abused by whomever have nowhere to go for help and are often met with laughter rather than compassion.
> 
> I guess the real question is what's the best way to approach the problem?


Sadly, reprogramming/deconstructing gender roles, masculinity and those expectations is a little tricky... I doubt anyone knows the best way 

I've come across a lot of feminists and feminist writers who discuss the subject (both male and female) and while obviously no one offers a direct solution, they all agree - it has to be done by us, men.

I liked this one. A New Masculinity: Why I Need Feminism as a Man

Good Ted talk on it, too. Tony Porter: A call to men | Talk Video | TED.com


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## McKay (Jun 10, 2014)

flint757 said:


> The problem is it isn't a legal issue, but a social one.



The fact that men consistently receive harsher sentences than women for the same crime shows institutional bias against men within the legal system.


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## asher (Jun 10, 2014)

Yes. But that's a social problem of those doing the sentencing. Not a problem with the structure of the law.


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## Grand Moff Tim (Jun 10, 2014)

asher said:


> Yes. But that's a social problem of those doing the sentencing. Not a problem with the structure of the law.



Yeah, similar to how women getting paid less for the same jobs is a social problem of those doing the paying, not the structure of capitalism. I'm not sure what your point here is.

EDIT: ie, nearly ALL problems related to gender equality, in the US at least, are rooted in social problems, not institutions. There isn't some rule book out there people are following that tells them to treat people differently, it happens because of social conditioning. That conditioning has its sticky fingers all over all sorts of things, like business, education, and the legal system, whether or not it's official.


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## asher (Jun 10, 2014)

Grand Moff Tim said:


> Yeah, similar to how women getting paid less for the same jobs is a social problem of those doing the paying, not the structure of capitalism. I'm not sure what your point here is.
> 
> EDIT: ie, nearly ALL problems related to gender equality, in the US at least, are rooted in social problems, not institutions. There isn't some rule book out there people are following that tells them to treat people differently, it happens because of social conditioning. That conditioning has its sticky fingers all over all sorts of things, like business, education, and the legal system, whether or not it's official.



I'm just taking Mike's post to be trying to rebuff flint's point, as a "no, it actually is [x] not people" thing. I might just be reading it wrong, in which case, apologies.


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## flint757 (Jun 10, 2014)

GMT all you did was reinforce mine and Ashers point so I don't really know what you're getting at. Laws are not parsed out based on genders. It is that simple. It is the lawyers and jurors that decide that women get lighter sentencing and/or that men get heavier sentencing, not the law itself. It is a social problem that needs to be looked at, but there really is nothing we can legally do to stop people from giving guys harsher sentences or women weaker sentences without narrowing the way we do sentencing. In some ways I do think that is severely needed, but at the same time not all crimes are committed equally and I'd hate to narrow it so far that terrible crimes get light sentences and/or rather innocent crimes get heavier sentences. That is really not synonymous with discriminatory pay because that is actually against the law even though it is a social issue. How do we make sentencing people a certain way against the law exactly? They are given guidelines and as long as they stay within them they are not legally doing anything wrong, despite potential sexism being at play.

He was claiming that the law discriminates against men. Even in this case that just isn't true and there isn't much legally to do about it. Blame the jury for that and the jury is made up of regular citizens. If we change the way society overall looks at gender roles and stereotypes that bias will likely disappear with it. That takes action, not finger pointing.

I'm not saying social problem in a dismissive way either like, 'oh there's nothing we can do about it, it's societies fault'. I'm saying that to point out where the problem originates so that we can properly target the right people and solve the problem. Racism died out quite a bit because laws stopped people from legally being allowed to be racists institutionally, but it stuck because society changed with it.


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## asher (Jun 10, 2014)

And yet the last couple of years have revealed just how little progress we've made on that front, too. It's incredibly depressing, really.


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## Grand Moff Tim (Jun 10, 2014)

flint757 said:


> GMT all you did was reinforce mine and Ashers point so I don't really know what your getting at.



I was being lazy and just looking at Asher's reply to his post, not the full context of Asher's reply to his reply to your post . 

On the subject of the entire conversation, though, I think in the context of the legal system, it actually _could_ be seen as an issue with the institution. As you pointed out, people are tried by juries and sentenced by judges, and it's the biases of those people that can lead to sentences that differ based on the gender of the accused. When you have a system where _anybody_ can be called for jury duty, you have a system that invites bias into the courtroom. 

They try to lessen the problem somewhat with jury screen for some cases, but unlike Pokemon, you can't catch 'em all. As long as humans are, well, humans, you have a choice: trial by jury and all the biases that will entail, or no trial by jury. So, is it a problem with the legal system or a problem with social conditioning? A little of column A, and a little (well, alot ) of column B. 

If a computer antivirus program is coded to stop everything but trojans and your computer catches a trojan, the root of the problem is obviously the creator of the trojan itself, but you can put a bit of blame on the program that allowed it to enter. 

Please note that I am not advocating that trial by jury be abolished, haha. It'd be nice if we could count on people not to be dumbasses, especially when serving in a court of law, but even though we _can't_, it's still better than other alternatives .

COMPLETELY UNRELATED NOTE:

I'm going to put my Grammar Nazi hat on for a minute here. Flint, you're one of the most well-spoken regular posters in this particular subforum. When you post something, one can generally assume it's going to be intelligent and well thought-out. That's why it pains me to see you constantly use "your" instead of "you're," or perhaps mixing up there/their/they're. 

I know it sounds like a dumb, petty thing to complain about, but to quote my college German professor after she saw a flash of anger cross my face at her constant corrections of seemingly minor aspects of my pronunciation: "Sorry to upset you, but you're _so close_."

Of course, you're old enough now that it's not likely that the harpings of some random dude on the internet are going to affect any change in your spelling or grammar, but I had to say something. You're _so close_ .


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## flint757 (Jun 11, 2014)

Grand Moff Tim said:


> COMPLETELY UNRELATED NOTE:
> 
> I'm going to put my Grammar Nazi hat on for a minute here. Flint, you're one of the most well-spoken regular posters in this particular subforum. When you post something, one can generally assume it's going to be intelligent and well thought-out. That's why it pains me to see you constantly use "your" instead of "you're," or perhaps mixing up there/their/they're.
> 
> ...





Most of the time I try to get it right. I do know the difference and normally make a great effort to avoid such grievances. Alas, I was leaving to go somewhere and did not have time to properly screen my post before clicking submit. 

Do I do it more often than that?  I suppose I need to be a little more careful while reading through my posts. With my longer posts grammar kind of gets pushed to the wayside so I can simply make sure what I'm writing makes sense.

Feel free to point out my mistake whenever you feel like it. We can only fix our problems when they're pointed out to us. Fixed my last post already.


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## Grand Moff Tim (Jun 11, 2014)

flint757 said:


> Do I do it more often than that?



You do, yes. Often enough that I consider it one of your "things." Keep in mind, though, that I only really notice it when you do it because it's so surprising to see mistakes like that in otherwise quality writing, whereas I don't think twice when I see it from posters of whom my opinion is... lower .

I think I'll refrain from pointing it out every time, though, because believe it or not, even us Grammar Nazis are capable of noticing when it's just obnoxious .

Right now, for instance: This tangent I've taken this otherwise important discussion off on has been pretty obnoxious, hahaha.

Carry on, fellas!


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## Hollowway (Jun 11, 2014)

I think the only take home lesson from this thread is that Jakke cannot be convinced of the truth with either common sense or data, because there is nothing in the world that can be proven to the levels he's requiring. Hey Jakke, let's trade roles: you prove that the men and women are treated equally, but you cannot use anecdotal evidence nor can you site any non scientific data. Scientific data from a study in a refereed journal will be subjected to my estimation of its validity, not the journal reviewers'. Aaaaand GO!


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## rectifryer (Jun 11, 2014)

This entire discussion has some pretty extreme up and downs. 

First point I would like to bring back to the table:

Every girl I have ever dated and every attractive girl I have ever been friends with have been hit on nearly everyday. Most of my g/fs would get harrassing calls at work from strangers or other coworkers! If I walk down the street or in the mall with my wife she will still get gawked at. On one side, I understand that this is disrespectful to her and I so it really pisses me off. Somehow the feminists claim that I am an asshole for wanting to defend my wife's honor yet the MRM thinks I am an asshole for caring at all. 

So what's really left for women? They're caught in the crossfire of two psuedo movements that don't actually help them. I don't see this being discussed. I have serious doubts about the effectiveness and motives of the modern feminist movement, atleast from what I see online since I don't actually see it implemented on campus or around the city...We are somehow supposed to embrace equality without celebrating or acknowledging our differences. That is absurd. 

Are my experiences anecdotal? Yes. Do you realize what data is without anecdote? Correlation without causation.

Second:

I think women's rights are being furthered by more specific organizations that bring to light, well, specific issues. NOW.org seems to do a great job while not perpetuating the slacktivist feminism agenda. It is a real organization pushing for liberty of women. If this discussion targeted specific groups and their actions instead of arguing over ambiguous labels then the discussion itself would be more fruitful. Furthermore, I know Explorer realizes this since he attempted to define the term legally. Regardless of the literal legal interpretation of the term, its connotations are diverse as evidenced by this thread.

edit: damn you guys for sucking me into this thread!


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## fenderbender4 (Jun 11, 2014)

rectifryer said:


> This entire discussion has some pretty extreme up and downs.
> 
> First point I would like to bring back to the table:
> 
> ...



That's a conflation of two issues. It's not the fact that you feel the need to "defend her honor". The issue is if you feel the need to defend her honor _BECAUSE_ she's a woman. I don't think any reasonable person would generally accept that it's always okay for strangers to commit unwanted advances towards our significant others (jealousy is a powerful brain-module) although I will admit, the more rational part of me doesn't really see it as an issue.

I think the issue is more the slight infusion into the jealousy that it's women that need their honor defended. I think jealousy itself is fine (just as if a woman wanted to confront other women from hitting on their husbands/boyfriends or in the instances of homosexual or trans couples).

At least that's my takeaway from it. Now, other people/groups may not parse it out, but I think in most cases with feminism (other -isms) the people who are proponents of the feminist movement are really arguing a finer point, that often gets lost in translation. I could be completely wrong though.


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## Jakke (Jun 12, 2014)

Explorer said:


> Lastly, I do find the following interesting, if memory serves correctly:
> 
> I believe that someone previously argued enthusiastically that one shouldn't face consequences for whatever chance led to someone being born or developing in a particular way regarding their preferred nonconsenting object of sexual gratification, with said way possibly leading to harm of innocents.



Well, it's refreshing to see that you haven't lost your ability to make up other people's arguments. I'm also stepping away from personal my rule to not reply to you anymore this time, since you addresed me personally.
Firstly, framing it as "preferred" implies that there is a predatory choice made. This does not seem to be the case reading the literature and listening to the stories.
Secondly, of course one shouldn't have to face consequences out of a trick of birth, which is not something I have argued either.



Explorer said:


> And now it looks like that same person is now abandoning that position, but this time with a group which is just their sex because of the chance of their birth or development in a particular way, and yet when there isn't a potential harm to innocents.



Again, you have a stunning ability to be completely wrong, yet unaware of being so.


Take a listen to this, you might for once actually learn something:
[SC]https://soundcloud.com/this-american-life/522-tarred-and-feathered-act-two-help-wanted[/SC]



Grand Moff Tim said:


> I'm afraid your memory isn't serving you correctly, unless mine is the one that's failing.
> 
> As I recall, what that "someone" had argued (and I don't remember it being argued particularly "enthusiastically") was that all child molesters are pedophiles, but not all pedophiles are necessarily child molesters, since they don't become molesters until they become offenders.



Very concisely and correctly put.

There is however a chance that Explorer interpreted my increasing anger as "enthusiasm", but that anger of course had natural causes.




Grand Moff Tim said:


> All that "someone" did was point out that that's what people are doing when they equate pedophilia with child molestation, when logically that may not always be true.



Well, logically and empirically.




Grand Moff Tim said:


> That being the case, he saw the _justified_ stigma against child molesters as potentially keeping non-offending pedophiles from trying to seek the help they need, out of fear of being punished by the law or by society.



Well, no, at least not my intention. My beef is mainly that things like mandatory reporting laws might keep people away from seeking help.




Grand Moff Tim said:


> Oh, I also remember you taking that to mean that that person must in fact be a child molesting pedophile himself, and that you were thinking about notifying his local authorities. How's my memory serve me there?



Yes, fun times... I do believe that he notified "someone who knows more about this than me"..

OR to follow up on your simily from before:
Ducks are birds, therefore all birds are ducks, and everyone who says that there are other kinds of birds than ducks are ducks themselves hiding in plain sight.




Grand Moff Tim said:


> That "someone" is of course welcome to step in and correct me if I'm putting words in his mouth. No, it wasn't me, anyone here just hearing about this for the first time. I just remember it vividly because it was such an absurd exchange.



To anyone still oblivious as to whom "someone" might be; it's me.

Your recollection of events seems to be as accurate as one can demand



Hollowway said:


> I think the only take home lesson from this thread is that Jakke cannot be convinced of the truth with either common sense or data, because there is nothing in the world that can be proven to the levels he's requiring.



Not hermeneutics at least. The problem with gender studies and the greater paradigm of patriarchy theory is that there is little to no hard data behind, but that it instead requires ideological interpretation (hermeneutics). Inflating a qualitative science with a quantitative science to imply that I ignore data as some sort of global warming denialist is very dishonest, as they are apples and oranges.



Hollowway said:


> Hey Jakke, let's trade roles: you prove that the men and women are treated equally, but you cannot use anecdotal evidence nor can you site any non scientific data. Scientific data from a study in a refereed journal will be subjected to my estimation of its validity, not the journal reviewers'. Aaaaand GO!



Hey Hollowway, instead of making things talking-points, let's actually make this productive. To explore this, I need you to do a couple of things:
1. Define what you mean by "equality"
2. Define in what area/way that you speak of. Is it personally or institutionally, is it publicly or privately, or is it juridical or defacto?
3. Understand that a negative cannot be proven, which you basically are asking me to do. You are asking me to show that some sort of society-wide sexism *doesn't* exist, and that might be a bit tricky.


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## AxeHappy (Jun 12, 2014)

Worth reading, has a link to the published study as well:


Male rape in America: A new study reveals that men are sexually assaulted almost as often as women.


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## rectifryer (Jun 12, 2014)

fenderbender4 said:


> That's a conflation of two issues. It's not the fact that you feel the need to "defend her honor". The issue is if you feel the need to defend her honor _BECAUSE_ she's a woman.


Please don't tell me what my motives are or are not. I think I know what my motives are. 

That is exactly whats wrong with internet activism sometimes. People generalize and call it "progressive".

No offense to fenderbender.


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## UnderTheSign (Jun 13, 2014)

He merely elaborated on the reason why feminists and/or others might feel it's wrong to want to defend your partner. Seeing as you didn't state your motives for doing so and the "it is our duty to protect women because we are men and that's what we do" mentality a lot of 'gentlemen' seem to have, yes, his post was a generalisation but an accurate one.


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## asher (Jun 13, 2014)

rectifryer said:


> Please don't tell me what my motives are or are not. I think I know what my motives are.



Also, while I think UTS has it, and I'm not directing this at you:

humans are surprisingly bad at being able to identify their own motivators  We've done quite a few studies that show this.


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## rectifryer (Jun 13, 2014)

UnderTheSign said:


> He merely elaborated on the reason why feminists and/or others might feel it's wrong to want to defend your partner. Seeing as you didn't state your motives for doing so and the "it is our duty to protect women because we are men and that's what we do" mentality a lot of 'gentlemen' seem to have, yes, his post was a generalisation but an accurate one.


I definitely listed my motive as to why I feel it is disrespectful. It definitely objectifies women when others stare them down in public yet I am not allowed to be mad it about because I am not a woman yet I am supposed to be mad about it for all women. See how contradictory that is?

A lot of internet movements in general get caught up in double standards like this that are frankly emotionally based. There is no logic to this, just like most of the MRM page and pua BS.


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## fenderbender4 (Jun 18, 2014)

asher said:


> Also, while I think UTS has it, and I'm not directing this at you:
> 
> humans are surprisingly bad at being able to identify their own motivators  We've done quite a few studies that show this.



I don't know why I do most of the stuff I do. In all honesty. Like, "Why did I brush my teeth today?". I can come up with a whole list of reasons, but were any of those actively in my brain while brushing my teeth? Definitely not.

To address rectifryer, I'm not stating what your motives are/were, that's completely unknown to me. I was stating a general case, arguing on the principles/beliefs involved from differing schools of thought, not a summation of your own personal reasons.


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## Explorer (Jun 21, 2014)

Moving to honest gender studies...

I ran across this Cornell 2007 study about wages this past week. Resumes identical in education and qualifications were submitted, but half had listings in activities like "PTA Administrator" to indicate that the person had children.

Women with activities which correspond to having children were offered $11,000 less than women without those coded activities. Men with child-associated activities, however, were offered $6,000 *more* than childless men. 

There are all kinds of other interesting findings. It's worth a read if you're interested in how things work in the US in the real world.


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## fenderbender4 (Jun 24, 2014)

There's an article in last month's Atlantic, that addresses the "confidence" gap. I found that aspect interesting and how much that has to do with wage differences. Definitely not the whole reason, but perhaps an aspect.


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## Explorer (Jun 24, 2014)

Since the study I posted didn't have any "confidence" associated with the applications submitted, it is clear that the only variables were male/female and childless/parent.

Or were you somehow thinking that the resumes/applications were secretly encoded with confidence? If so, how would you do that?

I have a hard time believing that confidence (or a lack thereof) on the part of fictional applicants explains the study results. Unless you supply a compelling reason to explain how your suggestion would work (more compelling than the simple mechanism they used) and therefore to reject the well-designed study, I'm going to accept the study's data and conclusions.


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## McKay (Jul 15, 2014)

flint757 said:


> *He was claiming that the law discriminates against men.* Even in this case that just isn't true and there isn't much legally to do about it. Blame the jury for that and the jury is made up of regular citizens. If we change the way society overall looks at gender roles and stereotypes that bias will likely disappear with it. That takes action, not finger pointing.



That's changing the goalposts and _not_ what I said. You said that it's not a legal issue when by virtue of being part of the legal system it is, hence my reply. This is compounded by the fact that both our countries use a common law system.


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## flint757 (Jul 15, 2014)

McKay said:


> That's changing the goalposts and _not_ what I said. You said that it's not a legal issue when by virtue of being part of the legal system it is, hence my reply. This is compounded by the fact that both our countries use a common law system.



You are just talking semantics then which is equally pointless. My only point has been that typically it is a jury of your peers who decide how strict your sentence is going to be (in the US at least). These individuals typically have zero background in law. The majority of actual laws written (can't obviously speak for all laws since I haven't physically read every single law currently in effect), which is what I was actually talking about, do not discriminate against men or women based on how they are written. It is the jury that decides women are by default more innocent, that parents should be in jail for fewer years, that men should be in jail longer, etc.. These perspectives come from our society and life experiences. If we want our juries to be blind to sex when sentencing then we either need to do a better job at selecting our juries, make sure they have some sort of legal background and/or society has to change the way it also looks at gender. That was my point. There is no other way to fix the problem without making sentencing a lot more specific and stricter, which IMO would be a bad thing overall. That being said, our judicial system needs a serious overhaul and our law books definitely need some cleaning up.

You said men receive consistently harsher sentences for the same crimes that women also commit. How am I moving the goal post by stating you believe that the legal system is discriminating against men exactly? What you described is the very definition of discrimination. I guess for clarity I'll state that obviously the problem is occurring within the legal system (didn't think that really needed to be stated since that was the topic of this discussion), but my point has been consistently that the only solution is within society itself, not the law. If you disagree that's fine...


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## tedtan (Jul 15, 2014)

Explorer said:


> Moving to honest gender studies...
> 
> I ran across this Cornell 2007 study about wages this past week. Resumes identical in education and qualifications were submitted, but half had listings in activities like "PTA Administrator" to indicate that the person had children.
> 
> ...



I saw this thread bumped today and have only looked at the last several posts to see if there was anything of interest, so I haven't read everything here yet let alone the links. But in my years in the work force I've noticed a couple of things that might account for the difference in pay you mention. First, and speaking in broad, general terms, women with children tend to take off a fair bit of time from work in order to care for their children (sick days, doctor appointments, orthodontist appointments, school functions, etc.) whereas men with children often leave those tasks to their wives. Second, men who are not "settled down" with a family tend to go out drinking and partying more often than those with the proverbial "ball and chain tying them down". Because of this, hiring managers and HR personnel tend to view men with families as putting in more time at work (and thereby being more dedicated and productive) whereas they view women with families as less productive due to missing more time form work to care for the children.

As I said, I haven't reviewed the link, but the difference in expected productivity would explain the three pay levels based on gender and family status, though I freely admit that it doesn't fully explain the difference in pay between women without children and men with children. More info is needed to address that. (Perhaps the women without children were on the same pay level as the men without children due to perceived partying, etc.)?


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## McKay (Jul 15, 2014)

flint757 said:


> You are just talking semantics then which is equally pointless.



Under what possible definition am I talking semantics? You said there were no legal issues regarding discrimination against men on the basis that the law itself doesn't discriminate against them. You're conflating two different concepts. The law is a _component_ of the legal system, an important distinction. It is entirely possible for a fair law to be handled in an unfair way. Here it is explained in 7th grade presentation since that seems to be the level you're at when it comes to constructing a coherent argument:







It's not semantics if conflating the two forms the basis for your point, unless you're suggesting that your argument is semantic? Remember, your entire point here in saying that it's a social phenomenon is to refute my assertion that there is institutional bias against men within the legal system. It's entirely true that the root cause is social attitudes. That would be the case in any eventuality as all laws are made by people subject to cultural attitudes. _None of this refutes my argument that there is institutional bias in the legal system against men. Your argument has no weight._



> My only point has been that typically it is a jury of your peers who decide how strict your sentence is going to be (in the US at least). These individuals typically have zero background in law. The majority of actual laws written (can't obviously speak for all laws since I haven't physically read every single law currently in effect), which is what I was actually talking about, do not discriminate against men or women based on how they are written.It is the jury that decides women are by default more innocent, that parents should be in jail for fewer years, that men should be in jail longer, etc..These perspectives come from our society and life experiences. If we want our juries to be blind to sex when sentencing then we either need to do a better job at selecting our juries, make sure they have some sort of legal background and/or society has to change the way it also looks at gender. That was my point. There is no other way to fix the problem without making sentencing a lot more specific and stricter, which IMO would be a bad thing overall. That being said, our judicial system needs a serious overhaul and our law books definitely need some cleaning up.


Edit: I got that one wrong, turns out there's more to the Jury/Judge relationship.


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## McKay (Jul 15, 2014)

TL;DR You're conflating two separate concepts and you're trying to refute my point by explaining one of its mechanisms.


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## flint757 (Jul 16, 2014)

McKay said:


> Under what possible definition am I talking semantics? You said there were no legal issues regarding discrimination against men on the basis that the law itself doesn't discriminate against them. You're conflating two different concepts. The law is a _component_ of the legal system, an important distinction. It is entirely possible for a fair law to be handled in an unfair way. *Here it is explained in 7th grade presentation since that seems to be the level you're at when it comes to constructing a coherent argument:*





Ahhh, Mckay. Always around to be the tool of the thread. Nice to have you here. 

If laws are being used unfairly against men how do you propose fixing it legally? If the laws are not written in a discriminatory manner then it is the human element is it not? Instead of just yelling from the roof tops that there is a problem I'd love to hear your solution (unless all you really wanted to do is argue; I'm not all that interested personally). I've offered one and all you've done is turn the discussion into 'how I'm presenting my information wrong' thread. Meanwhile, you aren't really presenting an argument, nor a solution, at all.



McKay said:


> It's not semantics if conflating the two forms the basis for your point, unless you're suggesting that your argument is semantic? Remember, your entire point here in saying that it's a social phenomenon is to refute my assertion that there is institutional bias against men within the legal system. It's entirely true that the root cause is social attitudes. That would be the case in any eventuality as all laws are made by people subject to cultural attitudes. _None of this refutes my argument that there is institutional bias in the legal system against men. Your argument has no weight._



You haven't really made an argument, just a general statement, nor have you even attempted to refute any of my actual points. You've just been talking in circles about how my 'arguments' aren't structured to your liking. I guess that is easier than having a civil discussion though.

I haven't actually stated that the problem didn't reside within the legal system (if you bothered finishing my last post you'd realize that). All I have laid claim to is that the problems solution lies outside of the law and within society IMO (clearly you disagree, otherwise you just enjoy arguing for no reason). Keep getting hung up on trivial bullshit though if you wish. 



McKay said:


> I stopped reading here because you clearly have absolutely no idea how the jury system works. The Judge decides the severity of the sentence. I suppose taking issue with that infinitesimal error on your part is just semantics too?



Stick to your own countries legal system because you actually don't know ours very well. I have served jury duty before and we did in fact pick the weight of the sentence. It doesn't always work this way and it varies state-to-state and case-to-case, but don't assume you actually know what you're talking about because you don't. In my state the jury does in fact determine sentencing if the defendant chooses so (they usually do).

Jury Sentencing in Texas » Defending People

[EDIT]

I will concede that I was mistaken about the extent to which across the nation jurors determine sentencing, but law is not my field of study (and I haven't claimed it to be; so please don't start another long winded post about that as well) and like most individuals I'm basing my information off of the information around me, my experiences and the general consensus on the subject. In my state, and a few others, this is how our legal system works almost always (and in more specific cases across the country as well). So my assumption was that this was just how it worked in general. Sue me.

Now, will you actually go in to why you're right and what you think we should do about it or will you continue to take the political tactic of just telling me why I'm wrong (and not even because of the merits of my argument sadly, but its structure )?


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## tedtan (Jul 16, 2014)

McKay said:


> I stopped reading here because you clearly have absolutely no idea how the jury system works. The Judge decides the severity of the sentence. I suppose taking issue with that infinitesimal error on your part is just semantics too?



Flint is indeed correct that juries are often (but not always) employed not only in the determining of guilt but also the sentencing phase as well here in the US.

So be careful stepping down from that high horse there, McKay. A fall from that height could result in serious injury, possibly even death.


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## McKay (Jul 16, 2014)

flint757 said:


> Ahhh, Mckay. *Always around to be the tool of the thread.* Nice to have you *hear*.










> If laws are being used unfairly against men how do you propose fixing it legally? If the laws are not written in a discriminatory manner then it is the human element is it not? Instead of just yelling from the roof tops that there is a problem I'd love to hear your solution (unless all you really wanted to do is argue; I'm not all that interested personally). I've offered one and all you've done is turn the discussion into 'how I'm presenting my information wrong' thread. Meanwhile, you aren't really presenting an argument, nor a solution, at all.


On the contrary, I presented a very simple argument. To answer your question, I would imagine some form of legal requirement for fair sentencing would go a long way to fix the issue, as well as raise awareness that it exists as a social problem.



> You haven't really made an argument, just a general statement, nor have you even attempted to refute any of my actual points. You've just been talking in circles about how my 'arguments' aren't structured to your liking. I guess that is easier than having a civil discussion though.
> 
> I haven't actually stated that the problem didn't reside within the legal system (if you bothered finishing my last post you'd realize that).* All I have laid claim to is that the problems solution lies outside of the law and within society* IMO (clearly you disagree, otherwise you just enjoy arguing for no reason). Keep getting hung up on trivial bullshit though if you wish.


The argument was that 1) there is discrimination against men within the legal system and 2) you are misrepresenting my statements. That seems fairly straightforward to me. If you use the bolded claim to refute my statement, despite it not contradicting what I say, misquote me and subsequently dismiss my (entirely appropriate) response as semantic then don't expect a particularly fond reply. Again, things aren't trivial because they're complicated or they don't suit you. If the problem exists both within the legal system and the general culture it's a more severe and complex issue than it would otherwise be.

I'll apologise for being overly confrontational here but you misrepresented my point, either because you conflated two concepts or because you consciously wanted to make it easier to refute. When I pointed it out you dismissed it entirely. I'm sure you can see how that would be a little aggravating.



> Flint is indeed correct that juries are often (but not always) employed not only in the determining of guilt but also the sentencing phase as well here in the US.
> 
> So be careful stepping down from that high horse there, McKay. A fall from that height could result in serious injury, possibly even death.


 Well apparently my high horse is more of an illusion if I'm getting my facts wrong. Flint, you were right on that one.


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## flint757 (Jul 16, 2014)

McKay said:


>



Ahhh, still being a tool.  Auto-correct typo. Get over yourself...



McKay said:


> ...



Dude, I haven't been trying to refute anything.  I never said guys didn't sometimes get a bum deal. Agree to disagree and move on I guess. I'm not replying to any more of your posts. There is a phrase, 'you catch more flies with honey', when you post you can sometimes be an ass (not just here). No one is going to want to hear what you have to say when you speak to people in a derogatory manner or act incredibly pompous in the process. 



McKay said:


> I'll apologise for being overly confrontational here but you misrepresented my point, either because you conflated two concepts or because you consciously wanted to make it easier to refute. When I pointed it out you dismissed it entirely. I'm sure you can see how that would be a little aggravating.



I'm sure you can see why the general tone of your posts can be a little aggravating too then. 



McKay said:


> Well apparently my high horse is more of an illusion if I'm getting my facts wrong. Flint, you were right on that one.



I don't care, this isn't a competition. However, it was the point that led you to dismissing my entire post/point so...


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## McKay (Jul 16, 2014)

> Dude, I haven't been trying to refute anything.  I never said guys didn't sometimes get a bum deal. Agree to disagree and move on I guess. I'm not replying to any more of your posts. There is a phrase, 'you catch more flies with honey', when you post you can sometimes be an ass (not just here). No one is going to want to hear what you have to say when you speak to people in a derogatory manner or act incredibly pompous in the process.


 You think I have a monopoly on being self-righteous? You should check your own tone occasionally. You created an argument where there didn't need to be one by responding to my posts condescendingly and contrarily. I'm not sure how else to take you misquoting me, so that you could correct a point I didn't even make, and then accusing me of pedantry when I point it out? It kinda rubs people the wrong way. All you had to say was 'oh, yeah I got that mixed up' instead of pointlessly trying to argue about it.



> I'm sure you can see why the general tone of your posts can be a little aggravating too then.


The difference being it's a response, not an instigation. I think you'll find anywhere else I'm as friendly as anyone. As I said, if you post in a certain way, don't be surprised when people don't respond particularly affably.



> I don't care, this isn't a competition. However, it was the point that led you to dismissing my entire post/point so...


No, just the latter part.


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## Explorer (Jul 17, 2014)

tedtan said:


> As I said, *I haven't reviewed the link*, but the difference in expected productivity would explain the three pay levels based on gender and family status, though I freely admit that it doesn't fully explain the difference in pay between women without children and men with children. *More info is needed to address that.* (Perhaps the women without children were on the same pay level as the men without children due to perceived partying, etc.)?



I do look forward to your ideas once you read the study. You'll be hard pressed to explain the discrepancies. 

----

Is the discussion between McKay and flint757 about the assertion that US juries are applying the law inconsistently on the basis of sex? That's an interesting idea. 

Have there been any studies which show that for the same crime and extenuating circumstances, that there are disparities in penalty? I know there have been studies showing that minorities have longer sentences than whites. That would be interesting to know.


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## McKay (Jul 17, 2014)

Explorer said:


> I do look forward to your ideas once you read the study. You'll be hard pressed to explain the discrepancies.
> 
> ----
> 
> ...



Yeah dude, it's one of the really clear areas of discrimination. Because it takes place within the justice system it's one of the driving issues behind the topic. If I wasn't on my phone I'd link you to stuff.


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## TemjinStrife (Jul 18, 2014)

EDIT: Nevermind


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## Explorer (Aug 10, 2014)

Just a laugh? 






And if that's true, does that mean that violence against women is not worthy of notice?


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## UnderTheSign (Aug 13, 2014)

Some 'gold' from the A Voice For Men founder. 
Jury duty at a rape trial? Acquit!


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## Explorer (Aug 13, 2014)

Even if he is convinced a person is a guilty rapist, he will vote to let that person walk free. 

so it's not enough that these "men's rights" folks often talk about violating women, but they are on the side of anyone else who will do so as well. It's one big act of revenge for these people not getting the power they're entitled to. 

Fortunatel he's put it in writing. If he disregards the jury instructions to such an extent, and a judge becomes aware of Paul Elam's vow to vote in this way, he'll likely be held in contempt... I mean, in that court, not in the way that rapists and willing accessories to rape are already held in contempt. 

Ironic, given how so much is made about "Oh, rape is a serious issue! Why isn't anyone speaking for raped men! We're against rape!" This really clarifies the real thinking behind the arguments made in this topic alone, which really seemed disingenuous to begin with.

Folks who were seriously talking up the rape thing to defend the men's rights stuff... do you have any comment on this? 

If not, I understand. I probably wouldn't want to have to back off on that kind of thing, if I had been capable of spewing it in the first place.


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## McKay (Aug 13, 2014)

If you really think extremists invalidate any argument they attach themselves to then by extension you should write off feminism every time a feminist says something bigoted.


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## Explorer (Aug 14, 2014)

Here's a story from the other side:

A store I was involved with was asked to set up a booth at a "women's festival." We were asked to only have women in charge.

Our record guy was the most knowledgeable about the music, so I said that he'd be the point person for our participation. However, if they sent us something on their letterhead saying that they wanted us to choose based only on sex, not on ability, then we'd reconsider. Otherwise, we'd assume that our application and signed check were still good. 

They refused to put their sexual discrimination in writing. We went and had no problem.

----

One other story:

A friend of mine was criticized for deciding to stay at home and homeschool her three children. She and her husband were both brilliant, and he worked as an analyst for a major government agency, so money wasn't a problem. 

There were people who were critical of her deciding to stay home... even though feminism (for most) is about people (men and women) being able to make their own choices about their lives, to be paid equally for equal experience and education, to have the same rights, and so on. She had made her choice.

They said she wasn't allowed to make that choice for herself... but undermined their alleged support of a woman's right to make her own choices. 

They were wrong.

So is this asshole.

BTW, I like that you went for the "feminists" without a word about aiding and abetting rape. It's important to have one's priorities straight, I suppose....


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## UnderTheSign (Aug 14, 2014)

McKay said:


> If you really think extremists invalidate any argument they attach themselves to then by extension you should write off feminism every time a feminist says something bigoted.


Save for the fact A Voice For Men is one of the larger MRA websites and one of the most cited, not some random angry radfem club.


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## no_dice (Aug 14, 2014)

Explorer said:


> Just a laugh?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Regardless of what a common topic marital conflict is in "humor," I feel like this is taking it WAY too far. Joking or not, they're basically advocating violence against women and saying, "you can buy the tools to do it here."


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## McKay (Aug 17, 2014)

Explorer said:


> longwinded anecdotal story



Nice blog bro, also I never did congratulate you on your siqq implied ad hominem earlier in the thread;



> I probably wouldn't want to have to back off on that kind of thing, if I had been capable of spewing it in the first place.





> BTW, I like that you went for the "feminists" without a word about aiding and abetting rape. It's important to have one's priorities straight, I suppose....


What's there to say? That article is ridiculous and counterproductive. Do I have to make that point explicitly for you not to make assumptions about my stance? Either way, I called it extremist and used feminist bigotry as an analogue so my thoughts were implicit in that statement.


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## Explorer (Aug 17, 2014)

I think that one can point to bigoted folks who say they define what feminism is, but they would not be the leading voices of feminism. 

I like that you asked about bigotry, and what I thought about it. I gave an example where some claimed that their bigotries defined a philosophy, and where they were not actually representative of the group... and you just blew it off. Why? My guess is, it wasn't the answer you thought you'd get, and didn't support your position. 

My position is, these MRA groups are actually all bigots attempting to justify their bigotry by hiding behind the idea of equal rights... but their rhetoric is all about putting another group down. That's like saying the KKK helps whites because it attacks blacks, which is extremely stupid and false logic. 

I'd be curious as to whether you could provide any leading voices of the men's rights associations like this who haven't actually been anti-woman (including making light of rape, or even condoning it or okay with abetting it) instead of about protecting and promoting "rights" beyond a supposed loss of privilege. 

I'm looking forward to being educated on this, because I have to admit, it would change my opinion about A Voice for Men and other such groups which I currently view, due to their words and actions, as misogynistic.

Mind you, I haven't lumped in those who work to actually reduce rape and to punish rapists, because as far as I know, none of those actually work in the realm of men's rights activism. 

As for whatever your stance has been in this topic... I normally figure such things out by what someone defends or attacks. Most would agree that's a good place to start.


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## McKay (Sep 2, 2014)

Explorer said:


> I think that one can point to bigoted folks who say they define what feminism is, but they would not be the leading voices of feminism.



It's fair to say though that feminists use bigoted rhetoric on an alarmingly regular basis and it's not scrutinised enough by the movement. 



> I like that you asked about bigotry, and what I thought about it. I gave an example where some claimed that their bigotries defined a philosophy, and where they were not actually representative of the group... and you just blew it off. Why? My guess is, it wasn't the answer you thought you'd get, and didn't support your position.
> 
> *My position is, these MRA groups are actually all bigots attempting to justify their bigotry by hiding behind the idea of equal rights... but their rhetoric is all about putting another group down. That's like saying the KKK helps whites because it attacks blacks, which is extremely stupid and false logic.*


It wasn't a case of you having an "answer" to anything, I was pointing out, from what I can tell correctly, that to use something published on that site to exemplify a broad and varied movement would be like someone using one of the regularly bigoted things that feminists and women's groups have said and done to represent the entirety of feminism, which would be wrong.

As for all MRA groups being inherently bigoted, someone left my last post negative rep saying "straight up crazy". I'd say that's a pretty apt description of your position. Regardless of whether or not I blew off your post (again, do I need to state for the record that something made me think? an absence of a reply doesn't mean the point wasn't considered, you seem fixated on this) you are absolutely blowing off something that many feel has, at the very least, a few valid points to make.



> I'd be curious as to whether you could provide any leading voices of the men's rights associations like this who haven't actually been anti-woman (including making light of rape, or even condoning it or okay with abetting it) instead of about protecting and promoting "rights" beyond a supposed loss of privilege.


I don't know, because I don't follow MRA groups at all. I have my own opinions. Why does everybody need to be affiliated? Why do we need to give deference to "leading voices"?



> I'm looking forward to being educated on this, because I have to admit, it would change my opinion about A Voice for Men and other such groups which I currently view, due to their words and actions, as misogynistic.


There are tons of nasty and bitter people in MRA groups. There are tons of nasty and bitter people in feminist groups. As I said, I don't know or associate with any MRA's so I couldn't tell you without doing the same research you'd need to.



> Mind you, I haven't lumped in those who work to actually reduce rape and to punish rapists, because as far as I know, none of those actually work in the realm of men's rights activism.


How can you make such a claim right after making it clear that you're essentially ignorant on the issue and are making assumptions based on an incomplete understanding?



> As for whatever your stance has been in this topic... I normally figure such things out by what someone defends or attacks. Most would agree that's a good place to start.


I'm not sure what I've defended exactly other than the assertion that men have issues that need addressing and that feminism, or more specifically feminist-inspired initiatives have had both a beneficial and counterproductive influence over society. I think my position is relatively balanced and I'm open to different opinions. I'm not making character judgements on people who disagree with me because I understand that most people are well-intentioned. It's been a long thread, but with recent pages all I think I've argued is that men have a tough time and face discrimination more than most people acknowledge.

Does that make me an MRA? Is gender politics that narrowminded? I like to think of myself as a progressive person and a liberal. I think most people in this thread would, so when people start acting like orthodoxy-obsessed ideological puritans it surprises me.


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## sevenstringj (Sep 4, 2014)

Zeno said:


> The way I see it, if you're not a fan of modern feminism, you must not actually know what feminism is.
> 
> And when a website is looking for a "clever meme maker" (the term you're looking for is Macro, people) and uses a headline that goes "Michael Flood is a cheap, lying whore. So's Tony Shepherd" it's a bit hard for me to take it seriously.
> 
> ...



And "proper" socialism would benefit the entire world. So would "proper" capitalism.


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