Sexism

@Silas: thanks, although Oppression Olympics wasn't the whole of what I was getting at (although that is often a problem). What I was speaking on was the blame-game aspect of the discussion.

For example, take the discussion on rape culture. Any time it gets brought up people start beating statistics so they can establish which gender does it more, whose "causing" it, etc. and so on. People will cite sources and quote studies for a few dozen pages...maybe tempers will flare or maybe people will just get bored and walk away. Either way, we're right back where we started and no closer to an answer - because both sides tried to make the other out to be the villain of the plot and neither wanted the role.

Come on people, we're media analysts. We ought to know better. That kind of childish white hat/black hat bullshit doesn't even make a good piece of fiction - why, then, are we trying to use it to define our reality?

The problem with that is that "rape culture" exists. And yes, it's something that affects men, too. For example, prison rape being a joke or seen as an acceptable consequence. That has nothing to do with any "battle of the sexes".

edited 19th Feb '14 2:32:50 AM by KingZeal

But it is a false equivalency. Both sides feel equally begrieved in the situation, but that doesn't mean both sides are equally begrieved. That's like saying that black people should accept that they too were responsible for Jim Crow Laws.

I agree that it's not as simple as, "This side is GOOD, that side is BAD," but the two sides are not equal, either, and the aforementioned Oppression Olympics almost always stem from an MRA making an outlandish claim like, "Men are raped MORE THAN WOMEN, so feminists should stop bitching about rape!"

Egalitarianism seems like a great idea in principle to me, but the core problem I have with it is that more rights for one side invariably means fewer rights for the other. If one side gains the right to vote, then the other side's vote means half as much. If wives gain the right to not be raped, then husbands lose the right to rape them. If black people gain the right to not be slaves, white people lose the right to have black people as cheap, reliable labor.

That's what happens when people are not equal, and it's been my experience that egalitarianism is staring at the Emancipation Proclamation and asking, "Everyone's talking about black people, but why does nobody care about the white people? What about the plantation owners? Does nobody care about THEIR rights? The freed slaves should pay them reparations for their lost profits." The situation between men and women is thankfully not THAT bad, but the issue stands: the two sides are not equivalent, and equality is not attainable if we act as though they are.

edited 19th Feb '14 7:31:54 AM by TobiasDrake

Thank you for saying it much better than I could.

Yet, if only talk is how "good" one side has it and how they should feel bad about it and people should only focus on the oppressed side, the very people you want/need to side with you are going to distance from you.

Take for example, while idiotic "male priviledge" lists. They are bullshit, pure and simple. Yet, people love to list them and quite them and shame everyone to submission.

For example, women is Saudi-Arabia have it a lot worse than women is western world. By using the same logic as "men should shut up about their issues", it means that western women should shut up. Yet, this does not happen, because "patriarchy".

Secondly, you need to define a right. Egalitarianism simply means treating everyone the same. If the white person has to be allowed to keep his right to keep black slaves, it means that the black person gains the right to keep white slaves. Both sides get equal rights, not that "one side loses, other side gains".

No one has said this. You are strawmanning again.

No they aren't. So far, you've just shown no understanding as to what "privilege" means.

No. Again, strawmanning. What you are describing is called "White Feminism", and it is indeed a problem within the actual feminist philosophy. However, it's exactly for that reason that we need to parcel out which groups problems are worse than the other.

That's not what "egalitarianism" means according to the strictest definition of the term. It means "all persons have equal rights". That doesn't mean white people owns slaves and black people own slaves. It means fucking nobody has slaves to own, which means taking away white people's right to have slaves, thus making both person possess equal rights. If you just allow both sides to have slaves, then it's not egalitarian, because somebody has less rights than the other.

edited 19th Feb '14 8:41:50 AM by KingZeal

why do I have a feeling I could "Feminism is right" and you would call it a strawman?

Also, there as long as two sides have equal rights, that egalitarism.

It does not matter if both side A and B can or not have slaves, all that matters is that both of them have the same rights.

You don't get to equality by limiting rights, you get there by defining rights that everyone should have and then enforcing those rights. If two sides agree that having slaves is a right, then in the name of equality and egalitarianism, both sides get that right, not just one.

Quite simple. Same rights for everyone.

If you consider a right to freedom and self-determination to also exit, you must determine whenever or not that trumps the right to have slaves and if it does, then get rid of slavery. If you consider right to be free and self-determine to be a smaller right than having slaves, then it follows that some people will end up as slaves.

Yes, it might be their right to have slaves, but just having a right to something does not mean you can do it. Just right we have freedom of speech, but go ahead and try to say we should institute slavery and that black people are sub-people. You soon find, that your "right to free speech" does not mean you can be hateful. One can argue racism is a form of free speech, but you soon find that people will not accept it.

Rights are not simple as "can or can't do". They are "Can or can't do and to what extend."

Equality is to be equal, in law and practice. However, it does not mean we are the same. No matter how equal men and women, white and black, European and Asian can be, they will never be the same.

This is something everyone should learn. We are equal, but we are not the same. In the end, it means we will have differences, we will be treated differently. Goal is to mitigate that as much as we can, so that the damaging parts of this differences become a non-issue.

edited 19th Feb '14 8:21:25 AM by Mandemo

Except that there isn't just "two sides". Let me repeat—egalitarianism means equal rights for everyone. If white people enslave blacks, then whites have an advantage. If blacks enslave whites, then blacks have the advantage. If whites and blacks enslave each other, then the people who are enslaved have fewer rights than those who do the slaving. Creating an artificial "black or white" dichotomy ignores the actual problem: that slavery exists.

That is a half truth. Whether or not people are exactly the same isn't the point. What needs to be eliminated, however, are arbitrary or biased descriptors that separate one group as being "different" than another.

edited 19th Feb '14 8:28:53 AM by KingZeal

The first part is quite simply true if we talk about the US and consider prison rape. The last part is simply a strawman. What most MR As would argue for is more attention for male rape victims and less minimization, which a lot of people do. The worst thing I've seen regarding dictating feminist "bitching" is the calling out of bullshit statistics.

And the rest of the post is just a massive strawman with no backup because most things the MRM will bring up are actually about rights men lack while women have them.

Oh hi, Mastah. You never replied to my question.

Were you saying that women were excluded from combat for another reason besides protecting them?

I wasn't stating anything regarding that, hence why I pointed out how you flat out made assumption about my stance right after painting that as wrong. But yes, I do think the fact that a human population is bottlenecked by the number of fertile women to be a factor regarding gender in the military, subconsciously or otherwise.

So is that a no?

And if not, doesn't that mean I was right?

EDIT: Got that backward at first.

edited 19th Feb '14 8:44:57 AM by KingZeal

Being right in one thing doesn't mean you weren't wrong in annother. It doesn't matter if you were right in guessing someones intentions when you just criticized doing exactly that.

Oh so you were just being facetious, and I wasn't making an assumption at all, but simply criticizing an argument you were making which itself was an assumption.

And speaking of assumptions, got any proof for your belief stated above? Because otherwise, that's an assumption.

edited 19th Feb '14 8:54:47 AM by KingZeal

If you were sure I made that argument anyway, why did you have to ask me if I did? Hell, you even confused my answer and considered that you were actually wrong on that. In short, you made an assumption.

You flat out criticized me for an assumption. You were inconsistent with your own standards.

I asked because you accused me of making an assumption. Which I didn't. I even explicitly said, "or some other such belief" specifically in the part you called an assumption. So basically, you were just being facetious when I called you out for making an assumption.

And, I might add, it was YOU who initially started this whole crap by calling one of MY arguments an "assumption".

Do you have proof or do you not? If not, you're still being facetious.

edited 19th Feb '14 9:09:36 AM by KingZeal

Then I haven't made any assumption because I phrased it in form of a question.

This is an assumption. Provide proof.

The argument that women's exclusion from combat is anti-men bothers me, specifically because it disregards all the benefits that military service provides for men. I hear the description of military service as, "Men being sent off to die so that women are safe," often in these discussions, and that description is skewed, because while it is accurate that many men die in these wars, there are also great spoils that the survivors claim.

In classical times, war was an opportunity to seize a patch of land for yourself, indulge in the frenzy of violent bloodshed – which is still popular to this day, we just have different ways of doing it – seize great swaths of enemy gold and treasures, and maybe even claim a few women as trophies to take home with you. You might even impress your lords enough to earn nobility for yourself, and in many cases, just by being a soldier, you were placed on a higher station than the common peasantfolk. It was considered a GLORIOUS thing for men to engage in, that could greatly improve your station in life.

Even today, war isn't just, "Men sent off to die." At least in the United States, military service can fast-track you into politics, and even if you don't have political aspirations, the military will pay your college tuition while also teaching you valuable skills, many of which are applicable when you come home from the service. Sure, being able to snipe the face off an enemy soldier from half a mile away doesn't have very many practical purposes outside of war, but knowing how to repair a jeep does.

And that says nothing of the sense of personal fulfillment and satisfaction that many soldiers get from knowing that they are fighting to defend something they love and treasure very deeply. Altogether, military service can be a source of tremendous personal, economic, emotional, financial, and even spiritual satisfaction for those who participate in it, and for a very long time, this was an experience that was exclusively men-only.

Sure, if you ignore all the great things about serving in the military and only focus on the possibility of dying, you can make a claim that restricting women from service and only allowing men into combat roles is oppressive to men, but that's an insult to every man who has ever fought for his country, and every woman who's ever wanted to.

I don't have to if my position is that neither cause can be proven. You, however, will need some kind of proof for me to believe you're interpretation of the events.

Regarding war, I consider benefits to it as purely secondary. Certain are only death and suffering. The situational gains are mostly relevant when the alternatives are relative poverty, which makes the demographic who shares in wealth and standing with the soldiers a more enticing group for me personally.

That's not how an argument works. If you have a belief that you hold to be fact or to justified by fact (which you claim above), provide proof for it. Otherwise, it means nothing.

You are presenting this as fact. Provide proof.

Also, this isn't mutually exclusive from war being desired by participants. Macho Masochism is a thing.

edited 19th Feb '14 9:48:40 AM by KingZeal

Well that's only your opinion, I know for a fact I considered joining the JASDF, learning how to pilot an aircraft, getting to use an aircraft that is sevral order of magnitudes better then any thing a civilian can ever dream of touching, being one of the few humans to fly and not just being a ride along...

Hell, even if all I would have gotten is mechanic, I love planes, learning all there parts and even just working on them would have been amazing to me.

But I learned that since I had two X chromosones, all I would get is to do the paperwork, and so never did so...

You seem to overlook that most of military service is optional, there are HUGE draws and over all it is a benifit not a downside, no one is going to argue a gamble, but even your "The only thing certian is death and suffering" is very wrong, Zeal's earlier statement about his neiborhood having a higher death rate then Iraq was not an exageration....

You really are more likley to be killed by violent crime then modren military service, death is not certian, nor is even being shiped off to combat. Posibility yes, but not certian, or even the most likley course of action.

edited 19th Feb '14 9:51:43 AM by Imca

You have nothing regarding the origin of the high esteem warriors and soldiers were held in either. We are both under the same constraints in a discussion and when I have to provide proof for my claims, others will have to show proof for theirs.

The thing about war and who participates it is that we actually look at two distinct issues, namely forced exclusion and forced inclusion. That women weren't allowed in the military had a negative impact on them, at the very least by restricting their options. Men on the hand were forced into the military, either by conscription or effective lack of other choices, which puts them in a worse situation. And we have cases where women were allowed in the military but the draft was still in effect for men and men only, such as was the case when I was about to be conscripted.

Edit:

For one, many benefits for military service were implemented to make people even consider joining in. For two, death and misery are the only certainty because we still have military deaths but many of the benefits you listed are very much specific to a modern, western military.

edited 19th Feb '14 10:02:10 AM by Mastah

Again, that's not how arguments work. If you want to state something as fact, provide proof. You providing proof is not dependent upon others doing the same. That's not arguing, it's just nay-saying.

But if you want proof, here you go.

• The Hagakure, or Book of Samurai, specifically states that samurai lived their lives in a zen state so that they had no fear of death at all.
• Genghis Khan once stated that the "greatest joy for a man" was basically committing acts of war and reaping the benefit.
• Vikings had a number of proverbs which glorified violence and war.
• "Gangsta" life in the ghetto is essentially an extreme version of warrior culture, whereupon the participants exhibit glorified machismo and willing disregard of their own safety. Certain songs in gangsta rap exemplify this attitude.

So does that mean you advocate conscription for women or that you want conscription for nobody? If the former, then you are making a feminist argument. If the latter, then what should militaries do in times of war?

edited 19th Feb '14 10:17:11 AM by KingZeal

You.. seem to vastly over estimate the death rate in modren skirmishes...

The iraq war, westren powers have lost 4,500 people, all together....

The US Army alone has 500,000 personel and is just ONE participant, there are 3 more branches of the us military, and the United States is just one of many participating countries.

The odds of death from servis in the modren military is exuberantly low, and honestly only the modren one maters since we live in modren times

Hell medival war may have had more risks, butvit also had way more benifits.

Ingnoring the benifits to focus on the risks is stupid, nothing comes to those who dont take risks, its just how many your willing to take.