Vane_MagicCity
Banned
Yeah, I think the new one is better.
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Men rights and issues
- Thread starter SquiddyCracker
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Yeah, I think the new one is better.
Vane_MagicCity
Banned
Sure we could go back and forth picking through posts each finding favorable evidence until we finally grow tired of it...or we could just not.
What's stopping you from trying to address these issues under the banner of Feminism (instead of blaming women or Feminism)? I'm not understanding that.
Most of what I would argue are men's rights issues have been mentioned many, many times.
Definitely the "man around kids must be a pedo" thing. You can't even be at the grocery and make faces or wave at a baby/kid without getting dirty looks from the mom or even random people. God forbid you walk at a park by yourself if kids are present. I was walking around in my mom's neighborhood a few weeks ago and saw a kid playing on the side walk with like 60 wrestlers and 2 rings. It was pretty awesome, but I was afraid to even look at the kid for fear that he'd tell his parents some guy talked to him and they'd call the cops or something. That shouldn't be something that men are so fearful of, but we are.
Second, the parental rights/divorce stuff. Not necessarily that things almost always play out in favor of the woman, but the implication that is inherent in the system that men aren't good parents and aren't capable of properly raising their kids like a woman. That's pretty weird. There are so many cases of women getting custody when the man is in a better school district and make significantly more money, just because "moms are better than dads". A lot of times, yeah, but it shouldn't be implicit in the system that men are worse parents by default.
I also think it is a bit unfair that men are always thought to be the aggressor in any domestic violence issues, to the point that even when the woman was the perpetrator and the man did nothing in self defense, the man will be forced to leave the residence.
I don't think any of that really counts as "gender equality" type of talk, though. The reasons those things are the way they are is because that's how things usually turn out.
Definitely the "man around kids must be a pedo" thing. You can't even be at the grocery and make faces or wave at a baby/kid without getting dirty looks from the mom or even random people. God forbid you walk at a park by yourself if kids are present. I was walking around in my mom's neighborhood a few weeks ago and saw a kid playing on the side walk with like 60 wrestlers and 2 rings. It was pretty awesome, but I was afraid to even look at the kid for fear that he'd tell his parents some guy talked to him and they'd call the cops or something. That shouldn't be something that men are so fearful of, but we are.
Second, the parental rights/divorce stuff. Not necessarily that things almost always play out in favor of the woman, but the implication that is inherent in the system that men aren't good parents and aren't capable of properly raising their kids like a woman. That's pretty weird. There are so many cases of women getting custody when the man is in a better school district and make significantly more money, just because "moms are better than dads". A lot of times, yeah, but it shouldn't be implicit in the system that men are worse parents by default.
I also think it is a bit unfair that men are always thought to be the aggressor in any domestic violence issues, to the point that even when the woman was the perpetrator and the man did nothing in self defense, the man will be forced to leave the residence.
I don't think any of that really counts as "gender equality" type of talk, though. The reasons those things are the way they are is because that's how things usually turn out.
Is all of this really just about the banner? I'm actually honestly asking here. Is the problem with this thread that the issues being discussed are being discussed under the heading of Mens Rights instead of Feminism?
Call it 'Femanism |OT|'.
I wish I had something useful to add to this thread, but I don't. I'm still grappling with how I feel about the assertion that feminism is an all-encompassing umbrella term for the rights of everyone. I just can't seem to clear that linguistic hurdle. This thread does make for some good reading though, kudos to you all.
I'll admit I haven't read the entire thread, so I'm not sure what "all of this" means, being that I made two posts, that were purely reactionary (i.e. I wasn't the one who brought up women or feminism, just responded to complaints about those women or feminism). I also never said a single word about Men's Rights, so you interrogating me about Men's Rights headings or whatever makes no sense.
If you want to respond to what I actually said, instead of what-you-think-I-meant-to-say when-I-said-what-I-said, then maybe we can make conversation
.SquiddyCracker
Banned
That argument is awfully similar to one often used to argue against abortions for women.
Personally, I don't really think it is all that.
ElectricBlue187
Member
You can't use studies to determine if there is bias in family courts because each custody battle is completely different from the next one. Most of them end in an agreement reached before trial (the lawyers for both sides want this to happen as often as possible), and usually in that agreement if the father has the upper hand due to a favorable report from the guardian ad litem he will be pressured to seek joint custody both because many judges are predjudiced toward awarding custody to women once it goes to trial and because its in the best interest of the child. So it's basically deal or roll the dice and potentially lose custody altogether.
I''ve always been for men being able to discuss any problems (real, perceived, whatever) without hostility, but seen opposition to it because of accusations the movement seems thoroughly poisoned by angry (mostly white men) who have been spurned by women, are openly misogynistic, and who are otherwise uninterested in the problems of minority groups.
Without pointing fingers, I've noticed a few of the posters arguing for men's rights in these threads are also the same ones defensively nitpicking the definition of "white privilege" elsewhere in OT (sometimes to the extent of denying it). Didn't think that would be the case in a place like this -- the amount of crossover is disturbing enough to give me pause and consider backing away, no longer wanting to partake in discussions with people I thought were on the same page.
Without pointing fingers, I've noticed a few of the posters arguing for men's rights in these threads are also the same ones defensively nitpicking the definition of "white privilege" elsewhere in OT (sometimes to the extent of denying it). Didn't think that would be the case in a place like this -- the amount of crossover is disturbing enough to give me pause and consider backing away, no longer wanting to partake in discussions with people I thought were on the same page.
Not similar, but exactly the same. When it comes to children and divorce, that's when men often get the shaft.
With children, its more understandable. Since only one persons body is affected, that person has more control of the situation which creates inherent inequality. But divorce law is written as if we are still living in the 1950s where women couldn't get jobs and continuous support was required.
Kai Dracon
Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
I am reminded of an old observation, intended to be read as a message to men from women:
"So you say women are all just a bunch of bitches. No matter what you do or say, they treat you like you're a male pig. Here's the problem. It's not the women who are bitches. You're just an asshole."
And yeah, the problem is that men who suffer this issue (being unable to comprehend that they're being assholes, and this is a reason why almost all women spurn them) tend to be the loudest and most hostile when a "movement" springs up. It's not unexpected that we have this situation; anti-feminism rhetoric is not new, and has been spun since feminism itself became a "thing".
Sad part is that if one tries to sift through the chaff, there are a lot of men who actually want to help solve these problems.
That is the sad part, that they probably rope in a lot of good-willed people who could otherwise help us progress forward together.
I wouldn't worry about the linguistic hurdle, and I've always liked this definition from bell hook's Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center: "Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression." I think it helps more to think about it in terms of its historical development to see why feminists would be concerned with different issues. Why would feminists be concerned with racial injustice? Because even if we have gender equality, if we have racial inequality then we still have oppression. Why would feminists care about class inequality? Why would feminists care about homophobia? This all goes back to the idea of intersectionality - the idea that different identities interact in different ways (e.g. a white woman does not experience gender in the same way as a black woman; race intersects with gender for both of them) to create different experiences. Intersectionality also holds that different forms of oppression aren't truly separate; that because of the way they interrelate they create a system of oppression, or kyriarchy.
This wasn't always the case; it was the arguments of feminists of color, poor feminists, globally-minded / anti-colonialist feminists, socialist feminists, lesbian feminists, and so forth that criticized feminism (particularly mainstream liberal feminism), which then absorbed these critiques. And if you look at feminist blogs today, you see this now. For instance, on the first two pages of Feministing when I posted this, there's an article about ways that white people can be less oppressive, about the tenth anniversary of the Iraq War and sundry bad things associated with it, and links to issues about stop and frisk and why the prison system is terrible.
I don't want to imply that I think that this means that feminism "covers" all of these issues, and therefore we don't need movements for gay rights, racial justice and equality, prison reform, transgender rights, worker's rights, and so forth. Quite the contrary! I think that all of these issues need their own movements; my point is simply that feminism does support these movements because of this idea of intersectionality.
You're now probably wondering: Where are men's issues covered in all this? Do feminists oppose men having their own movement to redress issues that men face? And I think that the situation is slightly different here; feminism's raison d'etre is the opposition of sexism and sexist exploitation after all. So feminists like myself think that the issues that men face are the result of sexist thinking - that while patriarchy is a hierarchical system that positions men above women, this is only a relative benefit and that in absolute terms men do worse under a patriarchal system than they would under a gender egalitarian system. We think that feminist attempts to deconstruct sexist thinking do help with these issues. For instance, the sexist (and often homophobic in the case of male-on-male) reactions that men who are sexually assaulted receive is something that would be improved by changing our sexist understanding of men and of sexual assault.
So the hostility to the men's rights movement isn't that it is a separate movement to express interests of a group who issues are ostensibly supported by feminism; otherwise as a feminist I would have to oppose separate movements for other groups to be consistent. And it isn't that feminists are hostile to the issues that men face, either. I think that feminists would be fine with men who didn't call themselves feminists who spent most of their time talking about the issues that men face as a result of their gender, and working to change those expectations. Even if they spent relatively little or no time discussing issues that face women as a result of sexist thinking, I wouldn't be hostile to them because I believe that any work in deconstructing sexist thinking - that doesn't engage in its own sexist constructions - is a good thing.
I think it helps to think about this in terms of ideologies. The men's rights movement and feminism often agree on a lot (though not all) of the problems; where we differ is in what we think are the causes and solutions of these problems. The men's rights movement tends to think that the problem is feminism... which brings us to something of an impasse. I think the perception that feminists don't care about men's issues stems from a) the men's rights movement confuses hostility for their ideas and solutions to men's problem and their sexist rhetoric with hostility against men's issues, b) a lot of people just don't know what feminists actually think and so they go off of what they think they know.
Rubbish King
The gift that keeps on giving
Interesting and kinda sad read, thanks TC
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