Sexism and Men's Issues

Silasw: Also those who participate in masculinity who are not "welcome" are tested more. They did a study in a women's prison where multiple people were either masculine leaning, or trans men. They had a much tougher time procuring simple objects, such as medicine. While the women inmates had no trouble saying "I have a headache I don't want to work" the masculine women and transgender men were constantly tested and doubted.

I would not be surprised if this is true for other men who show forms of subversive masculinity.

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I was just saying how the traditional patriarchal look is. Of course, even men who unwillingly fail the standards are threats to the patriarchal order. They show that men are not universally better suited for dominant//rational/strong/active roles than women. And thus the No True Scotsman has to be invoked. And women who attempt to break the mold have to be ridiculed or regarded as a credit to her gender to preserve the "natural" order.

edited 28th Jul '15 3:47:53 PM by Antiteilchen

This is what I mean. You're saying that the reason patriarchy discourages men from acting more feminine is because it could lead to women being seen as equal to men and we can't have that. You see where I'm coming from?

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

What do you think the reasons are, then? I fail to see how the "why" should undermine the issues though. The reasons are only relevant insofar as we have to know how to solve them. That we have to solve them isn't really dependant on the reasons of their existence.

I simplified of course. There are other reasons. Making men into warriors is the main one, I think. But that only works because feminine and warrior have been disassociated prior to it (to keep them down). If women could be warriors as well, acting feminine would not be a threat to being a warrior.

Edited addendum: Of course, discouraging women from being warriors isn't merely done to keep them down. Pragmatically, they're also more valuable as you need more women to repopulate after a war than you need men.

edited 28th Jul '15 8:10:39 PM by Antiteilchen

The Warrior Narrative in general is an interesting concept. Cause remember, we don't really want people to randomly break out into fights. But we still encourage it through media and general machismo. It's a pretty messed up contradiction when you think about it.

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One of these days, the Men's Issues thread will go a whole page without talking about how it's really about women.

Here's the thing. Men's issues and women's issues aren't a zero-sum game where dealing with one means the other goes ignored. Often, they're complimentary, so that working to resolve one benefits both. However, that doesn't mean that they're the same. Men's mental health issues can't be resolved by addressing women. Men getting harsher prison sentences isn't something that can be dealt with via women. The much higher rates of male homelessness won't be solved by talking about women.

And that's is fine. Gender issues aren't a competition, and it's not about men versus women. As long as we can agree that both sets of issues are serious problem that deserve serious attention, then there's no conflict there and nothing to fight about. You can easily support attempts to solve both sets of issues simultaneously without being any sort of hypocritical or contradictory.

Which is why I get so goddamn frustrated when people try to make everything about one or the other. This is the men's issues thread. Why can we not talk about men's issues without getting derailed onto women's issues and how they're related to/more important than/actually the root cause of men's issues? I'm not at all opposed to talk about women's issues, but we have a separate thread for that. And we have a general sexism thread too, if you want to talk about issues that legitimately affect both genders and needs to be discussed in that context. Use those threads, instead of this one.

Does it really matter whether patriarchy treats men who don't live up to the Masculine Ideal like shit because being un-Masculine makes them a failure as a man and therefore not deserving of respect, or if it treats them like shit because being un-Masculine makes them Womanly, and therefore deserving of contempt? Either way, the result is that men who need help are considered to be unworthy of receiving it as evidenced by the fact that they need it. Either way, men are harmed by societal attitudes about how much should act and what's acceptable male behavior. Either way, there are issues affecting men that are separate from, but equally deserving of attention as, the issues that affect women.

So why can't we talk about them that way?

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I dunno about you, but part of the issue seems to be that some issues are deemed "making it about women" when it has nothing to do with it. For instance I know someone made a post about patriarchal problems men face, there was no mention of women, and it was still deemed he was making it about women.

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No complaining about the fact that someone mentioned women in the men's issue thread. The amount of pages spent complaining about the problem could actually talk about men's issues. If someone brings up women, just change the topic back to men's issue. Don't complain about women being mentioned.

This is the men's issue thread. Not the complaining about women being brought up in the men's issue thread thread.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Just to put an example, being nerdy and geeky is as unmanly as it gets without going into the lady's territory.

edited 28th Jul '15 8:20:29 PM by AngelusNox

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@Jovian:

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

Men and geekery are experiencing an interesting shift in general, and you can actually see a huge problem with it, interestingly enough.

Geeks were bullied for not being unmanly, but in retaliation, instead of having the culture go "unmanly is fine" it instead went the opposite, trying to prove that being geeky WAS manly, and masculinizing many chunks of it, as well as very strong gate keeping.

Granted the tribalism of "I'm a better X than YOU are" is always around, but I think it shows more in geek culture in general.

It's not enough to uplift groups of people who show subversive masculinity, because they just fall into the same patterns, just slightly different.

edited 28th Jul '15 8:32:20 PM by MrAHR

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Tribalism it isnt about "im better X than you" is more "Im X and because of it im totally diferent being that you, sorry...but it just it"

Geeky stuff is insular by nature and yes, there is a sigly bitterness about it, after all they where bully because their interest where ether unmanly or childish, in many cases by women who side with the bullies, now that geekyness is "cool" many fe el "invaded" into their playground and being told the things they like are sexist...yeah, it dosent sit everywell

A least for me this explain the clash that happen in the whole gamergate fiasco(that and the typical insanity of the net)

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Because it threatens their ability to keep men in the gender roles that make them useful to the goals of the patriarchy. The patriarchy find men useful in certain roles, it doesn't want them to move away from said roles because then they aren't as useful to the patriarchy.

The "why" of the patriarchy fearing people leaving their gender roles isn't because it fears equality, it fear choice, it's terrified of the idea that men and women might chose their role in society instead of taking the one the system gives them.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

As much as people say they like freedom of choice, people like structure, categories, and clear borders. Fear of the unknown isn't just applicable to completely unknown concepts, but also to situations where it's unknown exactly what it is some kind of person or behaviour is defined as.

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No. I myself said that it doesn't matter. But don't let that stop you ranting about it anyway.

But why does it fear choice? If some men chose "feminine" roles and some women "masculine" ones, the amount of people in certain roles should be the same. It fears choice because it leads to equality.

@Unknowing: Certain things shouldn't be discussed, so please don't bring them up.

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)

I imagine it's still annoying when the cog in the great machine says, "I don't want to be this piece, I want to be that piece!" Even when you have one of those pieces wanting to swap places. I mean, how can you mentally pigeonhole someone with a quarter-second glance when they insist on being all individual and unique?

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

Also it's not a role swap. Men aren't picking the horrible bits of female gender roles and men aren't picking the horrible bits of male gender roles. The system likes people to do the bits that get left behind when people get to choose and mix and match.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

That's not entirely true. Women had to fight for the right to be warriors and that's a horrible part in my opinion. Likewise, being financially dependant on your partner is a disavdantage but men are shunned for being dependant regardless.

What really points away from the fear of choice is that society moved largely to pro choice in regards to choosing professions in capitalist societies. Being against choice would have made sense in absolute and feudal societies and was certainly a part of the discourse. But in the bourgoise society, choosing roles is generally encouraged. Except for gender (and racial) roles. So there must be something else going on.

I don't know how useful it is to talk about the patriarchy as if it were an actual, tangible thing.

I mean, there's no secret council of patriarchs forcing men and women into specific roles to fulfill some ulterior motive. This isn't the Illuminati. The "patriarchy", the way I see it, is an amalgamation of obsolete gender roles that were created thousands of years ago for survival purposes. Now they're outdated and serve no practical purpose, but society hasn't gotten the memo.

edited 29th Jul '15 8:08:12 AM by TyeDyeWildebeest

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Things become outdated because enough members of a society determined they wantto change it.

This happens by educating and discussing things.

I am encouraged by what progress we have made and hopeful that we can keep going on it.

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Steven Universe:Huh.

Guess I am gonna have to actually watch that show now. (The atstyle initially turned me off)

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It all comes back to the fact that we haven't devalued women so much as we have devalued the feminine roles and preferences. Women who buck these stereotypes will be praised, albeit having a harder time finding acceptance, while men who move into devalued women's territory will face much wider scorn.

Or we can look at "women's work," which is low paid, and ideally done for free in the home.

The council was never secret. It's in the open. It's called "society". As for ulterior motives I guess you're right. Hanlon's Razor and Appeal to Tradition are more likely motives for most people.

It still rubs me the wrong way though, it indeed works by appealing to tradition, but what's the difference between saying that the people that want the status quo are acting without malice but with stupidity and saying they act maliciously. I mean, in online discourse, one can't just be wrong or have an outdated opinion, one must be either a "chauvinist", a "mysoginist" or both.