Sexism and Men's Issues

Backing up what Silas said- I'm a honky and so are my parents. Whenever my mum had sole care of us and we'd kick and scream and she'd drag us off (cos we were brats who wanted to stay in the park or whatever), no-one batted an eye-lid. When we were under the sole care of our dad, well, more than a few people would ask (on more than a few occasions) if we were his kids. He'd say yeah. In their minds he was still a dirty old man and we were scared of this kidnapper. So despite what you're implying, Gab, men aren't being hysterical when they talk of the fear that they'll be accused of being the worst kind of person on the planet. It's actually quite patronising of you to say this attitude toward men is non-existent or in our heads.

FYI- I found my backbone in the shower. I guess it fell out :P.

So if a man is told one thing by society, it's his own fault for listening.

If a woman is told one thing by society, she's oppressed.

When a man says men are mistreated, he's hateful.

When a women says women are mistreated, she's a fighter for equality.

I never said men were being hysterical or that their claims were unfounded.

I said it is unhealthy for the man to assume and internalize that the parent (and don't tell me men don't do it either because they do, sometimes worse than women) gives them a bad look or something.

I'm saying it is healthier and more productive to just give them the benefit of the doubt and move on to other more progressive actions and thoughts.

Guys are under massive amounts of pressure. Don't make it harder on yourself by assuming they're thinking the worst about you when there is a good enough chance that they aren't. And even if they are, what do you loose by giving the benefit of the doubt when you can? You only loose stress.

I hate the idea that we would have to use a quota system to get more male care providers, but I don't know any other more instant gratification. Cracking down on negative parenting and encouraging more positive examples could help break the cycle of boys not being good fathers because they'll hopefully have more positive examples.

What else?

Odin, Duck: The bottom line is that none of that shit is an excuse for not attempting to be a father to your child. You are trying to provide an excuse for this. There is none.

If society is actively against men being parents, then you have to do something, anything to be a father, regardless of what society holds against you. Even if what you say is true, there is a lot of room between "Society doesn't want me being a dad" and "Fuck it, I'm out".

The thing that's really pissing me off here is that your argument isn't even talking about people who do the best they can and legitimately get screwed over by the system. You are literally making an excuse for every selfish, irresponsible asshole who fathers a kid and doesn't do shit for them. Gab was specifically talking about men who dodge any and all parental responsibility, and you're lumping them into the same sob story as the decent men who really are fucked over by society and the law.

And before someone comes out with the "I didn't say" or "I didn't mean", let me repeat that this was said:

Do you know what a "deadbeat" is? A deadbeat isn't someone who's trying to do something and being screwed over. A deadbeat is someone who just isn't trying. Not men who once tried, got screwed over, and then decided to do nothing because they lost hope.

edited 16th Oct '14 1:33:35 PM by KingZeal

Zeal, please try again if you're aiming for any kind of accuracy and not lies and logical fallacies.

edited 16th Oct '14 2:02:12 PM by AnotherDuck

And that is one of the reasons why it'll take quite some time for me to go to the UK (or the US, for that matter). Stuff like that is mad and quite dangerous, since it might get the kids kidnapped, killer or something just as bad to happen due to public negligence and fear of interaction with them.

Here in Portugal, I've given some directions to some lost kids. Never got any looks from anyone. Probably because mediatic and public hysteria are usually mocked here by the majority of the population.

edited 16th Oct '14 2:00:50 PM by Quag15

@Zeal and Gab: Not gonna speak for Duck but I'm talking about me and my brothers being forced out of our father's hands by complete strangers cos we were "obviously" crying and kicking and screaming cos he's kidnapping us. Meanwhile, our mother never got the same crap when we cried and kicked and screamed. I also mentioned wanting details on the group pushing to make paternity and maternity leave equal. And mentioned that I mentally list names I'd like to give my unborn kids cos I'm excited about being a dad some day. I never implied deadbeat dads were so cos they'd be accused of pedophilia- I agree that there's no excuse for deadbeat parents. However, the fear of a pedo accusation is real and well-founded. Me, dad and my cousin have been accused. Though like I said, race comes into my cousin's case since he's white while his wife and kids are brown.

Both partners should decide who will/won't be on leave, but ideally each parent would each have their paid 6 months, which is why I'm hoping paternity and maternity leave will be fully equal by the time Axel Jr comes along.

edited 16th Oct '14 2:27:59 PM by OdinsLeftEye

It would probably improve if you just had a part of the parental leave money earmarked for the father. Considering the current distribution, there probably wouldn't be a problem to not do the same for the mothers, since they're probably still going to take the majority of any parental leave money open for both parents.

First you need to actually make any sort of baby-leave paid.

Most places in America don't fire you though a few will, but they sure as hell won't pay you.

Try what again? What fallacies?

Please respond and not snipe.

Yes, ideally you wouldn't need to give any of the money specifically to one parent, but we don't live in an ideal world, and if we want both parents to take a more equal part in raising their children, we need more encouragement on the side that's lacking.

Naturally. But I was under the impression that part of the discussion was about areas that have at least that.

Pretty much all your interpretations of what was said are so wrong it's not even funny.

edited 16th Oct '14 2:38:19 PM by AnotherDuck

@Odin: Okay, I misinterpreted your posts as supporting Duck's argument, so there I was mistaken.

My point about Duck said stands, until he points out what was so "inaccurate" specifically. Because he's still just sniping and saying nothing.

edited 16th Oct '14 2:40:39 PM by KingZeal

I was typing it out, just not on the site.

"There are more male deadbeat parents when society looks down or hates on men for associating with children," means that there is a correlation between the number of deadbeat parents and society having a negative view of men associating with children. That's the literal definition of the sentence. It doesn't provide any kind of value or judgement on those deadbeat parents, nor does it specify exactly what that correlation is.

The first thing (and main thing) that's wrong is that when I bring up that correlation you automatically assume I mean it as an excuse for those men to be as negligent as they want to. That's a Slippery Slope argument at best, as well as attempted mind reading. There's nothing aside from your own false claim that even mentions the situation is in any way okay or acceptable. An excuse means it's to some degree okay, because it's not entirely their fault.

That's most of your post, really.

The second thing that's wrong is that you take "deadbeat parent" and make it into an absolute, single definition, without considering that people are a range of people. People are different. Even within a group like that.

If you have an overall negative view of men as parents, it's going to affect all men (unless they're immune to outside influences) to some degree. Not a lot, but some.

If it's someone who doesn't even try, he might've at least considered the idea of trying with a more positive view. If it's someone who at least considered the idea of trying he might've looked for opportunities to try with a more positive view. If it's someone who at least looked for opportunities to try he might've actually acted on them once or twice with a more positive view.

And so on. That's how numbers work when you are talking about a large amount of people who may or may not fit a specific definition. It's not about single individuals flipping a switch from entirely bad to entirely good. It's about single individuals at the border of the definition crossing it with a small step, and about most people improving just a little.

If you actually want to refute the sentence you quoted you have to prove that there's absolutely no correlation between the number of male deadbeat parents and society's view on men as parents.

edited 16th Oct '14 3:07:02 PM by AnotherDuck

Blanking out because I don't want to make this a double post.

edited 16th Oct '14 6:13:32 PM by KingZeal

Okay, Duck. I'm gonna break this reply into two parts: what you said then, and what you're saying now. For the purposes of good faith, I'm going to assume that the latter is what you meant all along.

Here's what you said the first time.

The second time you said this (emphasis mine):

Here, you're directly stating that there is a causation between men being belittled for fatherhood and the rise of deadbeat dads. Originally, you say "Of course this happens", as if it were an foregone, inevitable consequence. The second time, you specifically say "[thing A] leads to [thing B]". As I said before, if this is what you had meant, this would be making excuses for deadbeat dads—specifically by saying that the belittling lead to them becoming deadbeat dads.

For the record, I'd also like to not that you also said this in response to Gabrael, who said this (emphasis mine again):

Now, if she's reading this, she can either confirm or call me out, but this seems to me like she's not talking about men who want to make an effort to become dads. She states that you have to call them on their shit, and tell them to be fathers. Maybe she could have gone with gentler language like "encourage them", but whatever.

Now, this is what you said later:

This post is claiming that there is a "correlation' between the discouragement of fatherhood and the rise of deadbeat dads. So, this is a different argument than you made before. You also say that you're not stating "what the correlation is" or making any judgements on it and whatever.

And to this, I say: "so?"

Again, this has nothing to do with whom Gabrael was talking about. The reason I used such a narrow definition of "deadbeat" is because that was along the lines of what Gabrael was talking about. If you aren't talking about what she said, then what is the point of your first post or this one? As I said before, she was talking about calling out the men who need to "prove they want to be fathers". Even IF we argue that this is because of some societal zeitgeist which has stolen their desire to be fathers, that is still their fucking fault. Even if we buy the shaky argument that maybe some dude who's never given a shit just might give a shit because he maybe got influenced by society, I would love to see some statistical data or anything beyond anecdotal evidence to show that this is actually the case. I'd love to see some kind of proof that fathers who aren't showing they "want to be" fathers (using Gabrael's words) will want to be fathers if you remove society's shackles, and not that these are people who are simply lazy and selfish at worst, or panicking and making terrible decisions at best.

You also turned this argument around by implying that women who do terrible things because of oppression are still seen as victims. I'm not going to say that this doesn't happen, but I could have sworn that part of the feminist movement was about trying to get women to stop specific destructive behaviors. If you want to start a campaign that tells men "it's okay to be a father, no one will judge you", then I don't think anyone is going to stop you. But, that is irrelevant to Gabrael's point that you ALSO need to call out the deadbeat assholes who don't want to be fathers, regardless of if they've been given a terrible hand or not.

So yeah, I find your argument to be rather lacking, even if I choose to accept that the "correlation" was what you meant the whole time and not causation and excuses.

edited 16th Oct '14 6:17:34 PM by KingZeal

Right, so you didn't really understand much at all. Good to know for future reference. So I'm going to ignore most of it as it's irrelevant to what I actually said.

The first post was about a correlation. The other was about influence.

Is your argument is that society has no effect on how much men want to be proper fathers at all? Someone who's raised to believe that being a father is the best thing he could ever be, and everyone tells him he'd awesome if he became a proper father, would be no more inclined to actually become a good father than someone who's raised to believe that raising children are for women, and the less he has to do with it the better?

Why is it somehow controversal to say that men are affected by society's view of them when it comes to parenting?

Pretending to answer doesn't count as answering, and if it's an actual answer it's relevant.

edited 16th Oct '14 10:01:49 PM by AnotherDuck

I answered that in the part you apparently elected to ignore. Soooooo...next topic then.

Here's a positive article about black fathers--a demographic heavily stereotypes as deadbeat dads.

White most black fathers do not live with their children, over sixty percent make an effort to be in their lives anyway.]]

That's a stereotype?

Haha no biggie. Aprilla and I are one of those exceptions to social pressures so maybe more men are sharing our view, but maybe they aren't. I've heard cohabitation is rising especially in the case of having children. I am curious how this will continue to affect our culture.

Haha! I'm sure your kids would be delightful to see! I can always give them back

I was fifteen years old when my father realized that his wife and I could not cohabitate. We hated each other and the situation was getting worse, not better. It would be easy to say my father should have just picked me over her, and with nothing else in the picture he probably would have, but it was more complicated than that: they had two baby girls together, a set of twins, that he also needed to be responsible for.

We had been living at my grandmother's house at the time for financial reasons, and when my father finally had enough money to buy a house and move out, he took me aside and he gave me a choice: I could stay with my grandma, or I could go with them. I chose to stay, and my father had to do one of the hardest things a parent can ever be asked to do: for my own sake, he had to let me go.

My BFF Willow wasn't even born yet when her father chose to leave her mother to raise her on her own. He couldn't deal with the pressure of being a father and he ran. She never even met him until she was 19 years old and sought him out, and when she found him, he had a wife and two kids of his own. He had settled down at some point in his life, but he had never even looked back for her.

Both of our fathers left us. Mine left because he loved me enough to do what was best for me, even when it was the hardest thing in the world to do. Hers left because he didn't love her enough to stay. Not every father that walks away is a deadbeat, but some very decisively are.

edited 17th Oct '14 9:39:44 AM by TobiasDrake

I personally wouldn't count a parent living apart from their kid as that parent walking out on the kid. If you're still a part of your kid's life than it seems to me that you haven't walked out on them.

May I ask, and you can tell me to fuck off that's not a problem, even though you didn't live with your father, did he still stay in touch and be a father or was it just silence?

I ask because I think when people say "deadbeat dad" they have the wrong image. To me and to most people in my region, deadbeat is not just that daddy doesn't live with you, but that he is either abusive, manipulative, or consciously ignoring you, such as the case with your friend Willow.

My son's father is a deadbeat. He doesn't show up for visitation. He lies to my son. He has been in contempt of court status multiple times for not paying his child support of only 64$ a week, He talks horrible about me to my son, and refuses to call him by the name we all call him by because he says its "evil" so he calls him by his first name. (His first name was my dad's name and a little more traditional.)

My sister's father is a deadbeat. He was a married man who left my mom alone and told her to never contact him again or he would get a restraining order.

Now my friend Chris is a poor guy working two jobs. He not only pays his child support, he buys his son clothes, food, toys, and other needs. He shows up for visitation with a case of diapers. If he can't make visitation, it's always because he can't get off work and asks to reschedule or will take him whenever he can. He refuses to talk bad about Aiden's mom and tries to be as friendly as possible. He is not a deadbeat dad. He is a dad doing the best with what he has.

This shouldn't be that hard to explain and that hard to realize.

Dad who tries regardless of his successes or failures =/= not a deadbeat.

Dad who doesn't try or is only a negative factor to the child = deadbeat.

Society needs to step up and help these kids lest they grow up and become a detriment because the damage of a crappy parent is so freaking deep. My son wouldn't have to be in counselling if his father wasn't so damned selfish and hurtful. And while I am glad that at least we have counselling, it shouldn't have to be needed. We need other tools and enforce the tools we have to hold deadbeat parents accountable and prevent them from further harming their children. We need to applaud the parents who are doing their best and give them every available resource to continue in their work and help them be successful.

I am very glad that Aprilla is there to be a quality influence to my son and to help me try and deal with the load his paternal father dishes on us. But I would much rather for the sake of my child, never have to even have this problem to solve.

edited 17th Oct '14 10:14:43 AM by Gabrael

"living apart" is not enough to make a claim of bad parenthood.

If, for example, two parents divorce each other, it is perfectly feasible that they can have a loving relationship with whatever children they might still have but by necesity due to their diferences, will find it not possible to live together.

Visiting, financial responsibility, spending days with, visiting on important dates or events, and heartfelt concern and worry for their wellbeing as well as the educational responsibilities are not impossible simply because they sleep in a different place.

That's what I mean. Both our dads left us, but my father was not a deadbeat. Hers was.