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
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
it also a issue when thing like religious mania or extreme ideologies: it become the world of that person so they react poorly to outlets, when someone treat what is consider your hold world its aceptable to act in violence.
is kinda like murder the hypotenuse or yandere, but not romantic context.
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"
This may sound silly, but how much veracity does the Beard of Sorrow trope have in real life?
edited 18th Jun '17 6:39:22 PM by BearyScary
I liked it better when Questionable Casting was called WTH Casting Agency
Oh, bother.
Well, the trope page does have a Real Life section.
Makes sense too — if you're down in the dumps, you're probably not overly concerned with hygiene and grooming.
Disgusted, but not surprised
Yeah, it's a trope that actually makes a fair bit of sense exactly for that reason.
The association is, notably, not new. Pope Julius II famously let his beard grow to demonstrate his sorrow for the loss of Bologna during the War of the Holy League.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."
The law in the night
...I had one.
You pretty much stop giving a damn about grooming, I've also put up a lot of weight when I had mine during the middle of my college years.
Inter arma enim silent leges
When you have depression or are mourning it might show physically in a variety of ways. Dead eyes (your eyes aren't as emotive), bags under the eyes, you gained weight, you lost weight, acne, and Beard of Sorrow of course because you stop caring about grooming.
I will get a very small one when I have a bad day for my depression. I can't really grow a beard but I still look very haggard. I am one of the few men it seems that actually starts loosing weight when I am depressed rather then gaining it.
edited 18th Jun '17 11:24:35 PM by Wispy
For some good news, CIMB, a local bank in my country has offered 30 days paid paternity leave for fathers of firstborn children
.
As a background, paternity leaves are extremely rare in my country. Even government employees are given a mere one week of it.
This is a good news to me and I hope others will follow suit soon.
edited 20th Jun '17 7:23:43 AM by murazrai
In the "All men are sexual predators" stereotype news: Good Samaritan helping lost toddler gets punched by father, then labeled predator online, and was then driven out of town
Oh and throw in, "All men are bullheaded, never my fault, no apologies dicks" for the father as well.
Unreasonably Quirky
Whenever someone asks me why there are so few men willing to pursue careers in education and childcare, I'm just going to open up that story and point at it as sharply as I can.
Not as angry as the name would suggest.
That's behind a paywall for me. Would it be possible to copy and paste it here?
The man was also punched by the child’s father who told local media that he “thought he was trying to take my daughter” and “wanted to kill him.”
The whole episode prompted the Lakeland Police Department to warn citizens to “be careful about what you post on social media so as not to victimize an innocent person … Before posting information on matters such as this, we encourage people to identify the source and the validity of such claims before sharing them.”
Lakeland police, in a Facebook post, said the falsely accused man was visiting friends at a softball game when he noticed at a 2-year-old had gotten separated from her parents. She was “wandering by herself,” police said, and the man “believed that she was lost.
“The citizen attempted to ask the girl where her parents were and walked with her in hopes she could point them out,” the statement said, a fact verified by at least one independent witness.
At that point, “bystanders” told the parents that the man was “attempting to kidnap the child,” said police.
As the two were nearing the playground, three men approached them from behind, Patch reported. One man grabbed the girl and the other man, who is the child’s father, punched the man five or six times.
“I thought he was trying to take my daughter,” the girl’s father told News Channel 8.
“I saw this man with my daughter in his hands walking toward the parking lot. What would you do?” the father asked. “I wanted to kill him.”
The father told The Washington Post that it all happened very quickly, “within 45 seconds.”
The investigating officer noted the victim’s face had several cuts and was swollen.
Police concluded that the man was only trying to help. “We had an independent eyewitness that saw him walking around, asking, ‘Is this your parents? Is that your father?’” Sgt. Gary Gross with the Lakeland Police Department told Fox 13 News.
According to police the young girl tried to pull away but the man was concerned for her safety and picked her up and continued walking toward the playground, “hoping that he would be able to locate the child’s father.”
The father and his friends were not satisfied with the man’s explanation or that of the police. “So, I guess in Lakeland, you can kidnap a child and get away with it,” the father said to police, local media reported. The police report, local media said, described the father as “increasingly agitated.”
According to WFLA, other media outlets and police, family members and friends went on social media and shared the man’s photo, his Facebook page and his place of business, “calling him a child predator,” WFLA said.
Police, however, called him a “good Samaritan” in their statement. “It is understandable how parents can possibly be upset in a situation involving a lost child,” the statement said. “However, this incident truly involved a good Samaritan trying to assist a lost child finding” her parents.
“Accounts of this incident have circulated on social media with false information and speculation. Posting false information on Facebook could cause a defamation of character claim and those posting false information could be held [liable]."
One Facebook user responded: “I was one of those who shared post thinking it was helpful, now I feel awful that it clearly was not! Definitely teaches me to double check sources before spreading!”
“Now this man’s face is all over the internet,” said another commenter on the police department’s Facebook page. ” … The assumptions that were made can ruin this guys life. Unbelievable.”
The good Samaritan told several local outlets that he has now left town with his family for their safety. He says he will not press charges against the father.
The father made no apologies for his actions but told The Post, “All that matters is that my daughter is home safely.”
That's messed up. Also goes to show the danger of spreading news on social media without fact checking, which is a massive problem regardless of ideology or situation.
Not as angry as the name would suggest.
I feel sorry for the good Samaritan. He didn't deserve that.
I would not automatically assume that the man who returned my child to me is some kind of deviant.
edited 28th Jun '17 3:05:39 PM by BearyScary
I liked it better when Questionable Casting was called WTH Casting Agency
Jupiterian Local
The problem was that he saw the guy leading his kid towards the parking lot, not realizing that the guy was helping her look for her parents. Overreacting in a panic is understandable.
The problem is that when he found out he'd misread the situation, instead of admitting his mistake, he doubled down on it.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Yeah the dad is definitely being an ass more worried about looking wrong than admitting he ruined a guy's life for no reason.
I will also point out that it sounds very much like the parents in this scenario were really neglectful and lost their daughter in a really stupid way. I seriously doubt a child could stray that far enough to get lost with a watchful eye. In my eyes that really doesn't make them look any better for ruining some guy's life for trying to help them reunite.
Infact it makes them look even worse in my eyes. They let their little daughter wander off on her own at a little baseball game. They were lucky that instead of the girl actually getting kidnapped that they had a good Samaritan. Not everyone in that situation is that lucky.
Makes me wonder if the parents could get in trouble for neglecting a child if they delved deeper. Doubt they could do that though and sadly this guy's injustice will likely get swept under the rug....
edited 28th Jun '17 5:58:52 PM by Wispy
Oh, bother.
It's especially bad since incidents like this might convince more guys to simply walk away and pretend not to notice anything is amiss when confronted with a similar situation in the future. Hell, maybe that's already happening.
Disgusted, but not surprised
A procrastination in of itself
I know that I've in one instance just kinda awkwardly stood around trying to spot someone when seeing a lost child, eventually an adult guardian appeared, I simply didn't feel safe actually approaching the child and trying to help.
"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran
I was wondering about the same thing.
This has actually occurred to me once or twice. I have seen children wandering in places they shouldn't be before and have been forced to just keep an eye on them from an distance and not approach due to stuff like this occurring were irresponsible parents let their children wander and then get mad at a male good Samaritan for supposedly having horrible intentions in mind.
The scary thing is you can't be sure if the person that comes to get that child is an actual guardian or not. And I am willing to bet that has caused a few kidnappings by no one wanting to approach and help the child lest they appear to be a child molester in the minds of paranoid busybody
edited 28th Jun '17 8:56:27 PM by Wispy
Unreasonably Quirky
So we've made men so afraid of being labeled child molesters that the only men who have the nerve to approach unattended children are... actual child molesters.
Pretty much yeah.
"There was a case few years ago where a woman drowned her two sons because she thought her boyfriend would more readily marry her is she didn't have kids. She got called crazy, too; indeed, that rationale sounds crazy to the average person, but the woman in question was, apparently, not insane."
Offing the Offspring for this exact reason is disturbingly common in the animal kingdom, though usually it's the new/prospective boyfriend taking the initiative, not the mother.
Here's a callous but interesting exercise: take these examples of human villainy and make them into fairy tales. Of the classic, bloody, nonsanitized sort. Example: the Queen in Snow White was actually her actual mother. Look it up.
edited 18th Jun '17 5:09:22 PM by TheHandle
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.