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
Ahr river
They are. Hence the quotation marks 
. They still serve the same function.
It's actually a pretty typical "we want this but it's girly. We will take it and make it manly. Now we can have it." process.
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In Russia, those are a thing for very long time, so long that they actually went out of fashion by now. We even have a special word for them - barsetka.
Writer, Artist, Ignored
@Duck, besides being designed for the male form, conceptually there is no difference between a dress and the various types of robes listed by Gabrael. Think about them at their base idea: a full body article of clothing, pants not necessary but optional. They may not be popular in, say, the Americas or Europe, but they're a thing. As someone with a Muslim father from west Africa and used to have to occasionally attend Qur'anic school I've had my fair share of robes. We may not want to call them dresses because society and sexism and stuff but that's basically what they are at their core.
edited 2nd Sep '15 8:41:46 AM by MousaThe14
The Blog The Art
A procrastination in of itself
Yeah the only difference you will get is with "bath robes" and "dressing gowns" where they normally open at the front, normal robes and gownes are functionally the same as dresses.
On the purse/bag thing, size is a weird factor, purse bags are normally relatively small, while the bags that are pushed for men these days tend to be large laptop bags, instead of small more practical bags that can take a few things.
As the fashionable man I am I obviously have all of these, a small iPad sized bag for my tech and keys, a larger laptop bag for uni books and maybe also a few things, a large rucksack that can actually contain a very small tent, multiple long coats full of pockets.
No, the other one.
@Native Jovian: You're trying to dictate what I think by presenting arguments of objective quality that are seemingly in response to a clearly labelled subjective opinion. That doesn't make sense, so stop with that.
@Mousa The 14: True, there's an overall similarity between them, but to me it's kind of saying a T-shirt, a sweatshirt, and a blouse are the same garment, and, as related to what I said before, look the same.
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A procrastination in of itself
Duck, you're listed garments are all tops though, at this point it's just coming down to if something is considered a category of its own or a sub category.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
No, the other one.
That's pretty much what I was asking about, since I was talking about a specific subcategory.
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A nice butterfly
Would gabardines/trenchcoats count as some sort of unisex dress? :P
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
Look kaftans and kimono up: yes, you have cuts and colour patterns that are more "male" than "female". But, the underlying pattern? Is the same. It's the same garment, just hung differently.
Robes and dresses are actually descended from the same thing: the kirtle. And, at its root, that was agendered. The base pattern remains the same, regardless of where we put the seams and who we now say can't wear certain kinds.
Trousers, by the way, very likely started as modesty attire. For women in Northern Europe. When it turned out wearing them and stockings under your kirtle was practical, weatherproof and warm... they quickly spread. Even the Romans saw sense in adopting the "barbarian" style in the face of snow drifts.
And they were practically welded to the toga (one of the world most ridiculous forms of dress when taken to extremes).
edited 2nd Sep '15 9:55:27 AM by Euodiachloris
A nice butterfly
I assume of course that the male one is more hung than the female one
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
No, the other one.
No need to look up what I already know.
Jupiterian Local
No, the other one.
And I'm saying you're making shit up. Well, unless you mean that what everything thinks of anything is determined entirely by social constructs, in which case what you're saying is merely entirely pointless.
edited 2nd Sep '15 4:19:25 PM by AnotherDuck
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Absolutely no relation to NLK
Chill.
Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.
No, the other one.
Chill? This is heated?
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Jupiterian Local
- You: I think that dresses don't suit the male form as well.
- Me: That's because they're not made to, if there were male dresses tailored for male body types, they'd look fine.
- You: That's not why I think they don't suit the male form.
- Me: Literally the only other difference is that men in dresses are considered weird and women in dresses are considered normal.
- You: Stop telling me what to think!
- Me: I'm not, I'm just saying that there's no reason to think that except artificial social constructs.
- You: You're making shit up.
If you'd care to actually address the point and explain why you think dresses don't suit men besides a) tailoring, and b) gendered social norms, then we can have a productive conversation on the topic. If you're just going to insist that I'm wrong without elaborating, then we might as well drop the subject.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
No, the other one.
Right, full response, now that I have more time.
At the first post, I wasn't really interested in trying to argue my opinion in relation to an objective standard with someone who claims to know why I think like I do without bothering to actually ask anything about it.
Your response to that was basically that there's absolutely no difference between men and women other than social constructs. Which means that men and women look exactly the same. That relative shoulder width has nothing to do with what type of clothing looks better. That the size and volume of breasts don't.
And by stating that the only difference is what's considered normal, you're assuming that's what I think. Which is making shit up. Or simply not considering the possibility of someone being capable of considering men wearing dresses being normal while not thinking it looks fabulous. It's also failing to read that I wrote about there actually being exceptions, since that's a pretty big hint of not rejecting the concept of men wearing dresses.
I have seen several designs of dresses actually cut for men. Some of them looked good, some of them didn't. Could perhaps be that they just weren't very well made for the people wearing them. But more importantly, I said "I kind of think dresses don't suit the male form as well." I didn't say, "I think they don't suit the male form." Spot the difference?
Now, to actually answer it, I think it's mainly got to do with the hips. Most types of skirts go better with somewhat wider hips, especially if they're not narrow. And I don't really like narrow skirts to begin with.
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After being told they're wrong?
edited 3rd Sep '15 1:13:56 AM by AnotherDuck
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A procrastination in of itself
Because people on the internet seems to on occasion not to be perfectly strait forward and logical with their conversations. It happens Duck, people make assumptions.
Now if we could move away from the meta discussion that would be nice, Cracked recently did a thing on abuse that mentioned how male victims of abuse are often ignored, thoughts?
Link for folks.[1]
Apparantly some MR As have been using a california law guaranteeing that people "no matter what their sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, or sexual orientation are entitled to the full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, privileges, or services in all business establishments of every kind whatsoever" to sue businesses that have women only events or have different prices for men and women. Alyssa Bereznak is not happy.
A procrastination in of itself
Why is it always the assholes...
Like there are legitimate cases to be made for gender discrimination against men, the law should protect both genders from discrimination. We had stuff over here a while back about car insurance companies charging men higher rates just because they were men, that's not stuff that should be happening. I actually agree with the club thing, I've never understood why it's okay to have gender discriminatory policies for nightclubs (I can see an argument for reduced cost, but some clubs will simply refuse men entrance unless they have women with them).
But these shits clearly don't care about any of that, they don't want to use these services, they're not out to ensure easier access for men, they're trolls out to hurt people, they simply want to destroy women-focused enterprises.
By the sound of it these guys are only able to get away with this because if they loose they don't have to pay the defendant's fees, which seems incredibly stupid.
Oh and a point on the article, it lists several groups as appearing as "a rebuke to Feminism", while It's certainly right on AVFM and possibly others, it's wrong about the Man Kind initiative, which is a respectable organisation that's focus is purely on helping male domestic violence victims (it's runs a helpline and has campaigned against stores selling products that encourage domestic violence against men), it has the backing of some pretty respectable figures (and others with records that are both good and bad).
edited 3rd Sep '15 3:31:35 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
Because the polite reaction to not liking the status quo are those that can be easily ignored, not suing people.
From the part of the law quoted in the article it seems like the law does.
California law doesn't seem to agree with that argument.
Referencing the law as quoted in the article it doesn't seem like women-focused enterprises are legal in California.
A procrastination in of itself
Suing people isn't what makes them assholes, it's the targeting of groups designed to increase participation of unrepresented groups, the petty madness of going after places for handing out free stuff on mother's day, the blindness of calling women focused events "strange and sad", the specific targeting of small businesses, and the fact that they seem to be professional plaintiffs, that makes them assholes.
And I was saying that I think that that's important and needs to be kept.
I find reduced costs a weird one, we have laws against age discrimination, but reduced costs for say students or seniors are a thing, so it's a weird one.
The organisations are focused, not exclusive, assuming that the statement that the organisation "had male clients, subscribers, mentors and advisory board members." is true then there's nothing discriminatory about it. An organisation can be focused on a set of issues that are about a specific group and not fail to offer "full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, privileges, or services".
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
CNN also posted a story and if the quote there is correct then 5/6ths of their lawsuits have been about unequal pricing and only 1/6th about women only events.
I didn't say suing made them assholes either. I said being assholes made them willing to sue.
Not allowing people of one gender into an event pretty clearly does fail those requirements.
edited 3rd Sep '15 4:14:04 AM by Kzickas
A procrastination in of itself
Made them willing to sue this particular group sure, but it's possible to be willing to sue a group for discrimination without being an asshole.
Sure but the account on if that is actually what happened is disputed, the company claim that entrance was refused due to it being full.
“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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I though that purses for men were just called bags.
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