MOD NOTE: Please note the following part of the forum rules:
The initial OP posted below covers it well enough: the premise of this thread is that men's issues exist. Don't bother posting if you don't believe there is such a thing.
Here's hoping this isn't considered too redundant. I've noticed that our existing threads about sexism tend to get bogged down in Oppression Olympics or else wildly derailed, so I thought I'd make a thread specifically to talk about discrimination issues that disproportionately affect men.
No Oppression Olympics here, okay? No saying "But that's not important because women suffer X which is worse!" And no discussing these issues purely in terms of how much better women have it. Okay? If the discussion cannot meaningfully proceed without making a comparison to male and female treatment, that's fine, but on the whole I want this thread to be about how men are harmed by society and how we can fix it. Issues like:
- The male-only draft (in countries that have one)
- Circumcision
- Cavalier attitudes toward men's pain and sickness, AKA "Walk it off!"
- The Success Myth, which defines a man's desirability by his material success. Also The Myth of Men Not Being Hot, which denies that men can be sexually attractive as male beings.
- Sexual abuse of men.
- Family law.
- General attitudes that men are dangerous or untrustworthy.
I could go on making the list, but I think you get the idea.
Despite what you might have heard about feminists not caring about men, it's not true. I care about men. Patriarchy sucks for them as much as it sucks for women, in a lot of ways. So I'm putting my keyboard where my mouth is and making a thread for us to all care about men.
Also? If you're male and think of something as a men's issue, by golly that makes it a men's issue fit for inclusion in this thread. I might disagree with you as to the solution, but as a woman I'm not going to tell you you have no right to be concerned about it. No "womansplaining" here.
Edited by nombretomado on Dec 15th 2019 at 5:19:34 AM
It is indeed their choice and no one else's. How other people feel about it doesn't matter legally and shouldn't matter at all.
Reading this bit on age of consent laws—yes, the age we choose to put it at may well be arbitrary. But the concept is not. We do not want people will greater mental capacity and years more experience at manipulating people taking sexual advantage of those whose minds and horomones are still developing. Since it isn't feasible to determine the mindset of every potential victim in a statutory rape case (particularly since one of the whole points of the concept is that the younger partner is likely being manipulated) we set an age limit that we don't let anybody step over.
For those advocating for letting adults have sex with sixteen year olds let me ask you this: do you advocate letting them have sex with fifteen year olds? Fourteen year olds? How about thirteen year olds? At some point, I'm guessing, I will eventually hit an age at which you will say "hell no." In which case you too support the concept of statutory rape and age of consent laws. You might want to put the line in a different place than I do, but you support the concept.
A procrastination in of itself
Why is age of consent being discussed in the Men's Issues thread? It doesn't seem particularly relevant to Men's Issues to me.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
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It got brought up in a discussion of what the word "rape" means. One poster was arguing that statutory rape shouldn't be called such. Others disagreed and it progressed from there. Or at least that's my reading.
A procrastination in of itself
So it's an off topic tangent from a mildly off topic tangent?
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Speaking of age of consent, why males are often given higher age of consent than females? Shouldn't it be the same?
In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good.
Of course it should be the same. And I think in most developed countries that is the case.
No, the other one.
It probably differs in countries where there's a strong tradition of marrying with an age gap between the two, and the law is simply a reflection of that. I'm guessing.
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In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good.
Girls getting married off to older husbands is more of a women's issue however.
Queen of Good Things, Honest
It's rooted in the urban legend that girls mature faster than boys which is, itself, rooted in the tradition of older men marrying younger women.
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Of course age of consent laws should be the same for both genders. If they aren't that needs to be fixed.
A procrastination in of itself
The Wikipedia page on age of consent doesn't seem to mention differing ages where it's higher for guys, there's mention of it being higher for homosexuals (which may or may not include lesbians depending on the country) and I think there are some places where a women has to be married, but those are LGBT and Women's Issues things.
So anyone got a source for men having a higher age of consent? Be it in the developed or underdeveloped world.
edited 27th Aug '14 11:42:11 AM by SilasW
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good.
Until 2006 or so the age for marriage (not the age of consent) was 15 for girls and 18 for men in France.
@Tobias Drake: Puberty does happen earlier to girls than boys. That's a biological fact, not an urban legend.
In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good.
That doesn't adress mental maturity at all. Which is all that matters in consent.
The mind and the body are not independant. By the way, I'm not advocating different ages of consent for differing genders. I'm just playing a bit of Devil's advocate and saying the idea of an age difference is not totally an ass-pull.
V
So, in theory, should every person have an individual date/time of consent?
In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good.
In theory, yes. Of course that's not feasible in practice. Some might already be mature enough with 14 while others only are at 20. Complicated further by the fact that maturity isn't a clear yes or no question. You might be mature enough for some things with 16 but not others. The law has to be set somewhere however, covering as many cases as possible.
What's actually being asked here is, "is age difference a tool of sexism?"
Queen of Good Things, Honest
A major question that needs to be addressed in Age of Consent laws is this: who is it for?
Is the Age of Consent
- The age at which it is acceptable for the child in question to begin having sex?
- The age at which it is acceptable to have sex with the child in question?
In short, if a 40-year-old politician supports lowering age of consent to 15, is it because he believes 15-year-olds are old enough to begin having sexual relationships, or is it because he believes that we should be able to have sex with 15-year-olds? They seem like the same concept, but they're actually VASTLY different.
My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.
Self-thump
edited 28th Aug '14 4:53:23 PM by KingZeal
Queen of Good Things, Honest
It is when you ARE so-and-so.
Romeo and Juliet laws do a great job of covering that drawback.
My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.
Brain development doesn't work that way.
Self-thump
edited 28th Aug '14 4:52:57 PM by KingZeal
Goes back to what I said about them being okay with it. Although talking about what interests they'd have in common isn't really on-topic.
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