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
"Or taking responsibility for monitoring my child in the first place! It's perfect."
Sloth may be mankind's greatest sin.
edited 28th Jun '17 9:41:15 PM by BearyScary
I liked it better when Questionable Casting was called WTH Casting Agency
Jupiterian Local
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
But I am going to condemn the father for punching the person who tried to help, and then doubling down when he should have apologized. Not to mention trying to ruin a life.
Jupiterian Local
Well, yes, that's entirely fair. I was just talking about the whole "HIS DAUGHTER WANDERED OFF ONCE HE'S OBVIOUSLY A FAILURE AS A HUMAN BEING" thing.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
X-posting from medical thread:
Sperm Counts Have Plummeted Among Western Men, Scientists Confirm
(longer article, first two paragraphs below)
The sperm count decline is real and it’s not showing any signs of slowing down, according to new research published in Human Reproduction Update. By conducting a meta-analysis of 185 studies published between 1973 and 2011, researchers from the Hebrew University-Hadassah Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai documented a 52.4 percent decline in sperm concentration, and a 59.3 percent decline in total sperm count among men living in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. The same declines were not observed among men living in South America, Asia, and Africa, where fewer studies have been performed.
Oh, bother.
The comments section of course is filled with all kinds of idiocy. "Blah blah blah GMO...blah blah blah Wi-fi..." Wouldn't be surprised if they were Green Party trolls.
I am a bit irked that they didn't give the age brackets.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
I'm sure this has been thought of by the researchers, but I wonder if pants/clothing styles in general have something to do with it? The temperature difference and all.
Maybe this is a slightly wrongheaded way of looking at it, but I have difficulty getting too worked up about low sperm counts in and of themselves. It's not as if we humans are having difficulty maintaining our populations and birthrates, after all. We expend a great deal of time and energy trying to prevent fertilisation and pregnancy.
If it's an indication of poor health in other areas, though, that's what's worrying.
edited 26th Jul '17 6:38:10 AM by LoniJay
Be not afraid...
My Hair Provides Affordable Healthcare
It has been established that using a laptop literally on a man's lap is devastating to their sperm production, so I wonder if the increased usage of electronics in modern society has something to do with it. I also suppose the opiod epidemic and recreational drug use are factors in play.
edited 26th Jul '17 7:53:58 AM by FluffyMcChicken
Oh, bother.
Male tech CEO pretended to be female sexual harassment victim, suit claims
The complaint filed by Anis Uzzaman, a prominent tech investor and CEO of Fenox Venture Capital, alleged that a male rival CEO published a fake online account purporting to be an unnamed woman who was “sexually taken advantage of” by Uzzaman. The blogpost, which said Uzzaman pressured the author to go to his hotel room after a business meeting, was written by Brandon Katayama Hill, founder and CEO of a San Francisco branding and marketing agency called Btrax that competes with Fenox, according to the suit.
Uzzaman’s attorneys said the blogpost was traced to the IP address of Hill’s home. Reached for comment on Thursday, Hill denied that he was the author of the post, claiming that other people had access to his wifi and that he did not know who wrote it.
Hill tried to claim that 50 or so other people had access to his Wi-fi. The password protected Wi-fi of his own home. Yeah, I'm calling bullshit.
Disgusted, but not surprised
- Well, how many people visited his house that he offered his wifi to?
Misread, sorry.
edited 28th Jul '17 7:40:06 PM by hellomoto
My Hair Provides Affordable Healthcare
Google VP denounces worker's views on women: 'Diversity and inclusion are critical to our success'
The latest conflict is at Google, where a male engineer suggested that women don't get ahead in tech jobs because of biological differences.
His widely shared memo — titled “Google's Ideological Echo Chamber” and published in full on tech news site Recode — also criticizes Google for pushing mentoring and diversity programs and for “alienating conservatives.”
Google's just-hired head of diversity, Danielle Brown, responded with her own memo, saying that Google is “unequivocal in our belief that diversity and inclusion are critical to our success.” She said change is hard and “often uncomfortable.”
Yeah, someone's been overdosing on red pills. Hell, with all of the documented cases of sexism in the tech industry, I wouldn't be surprised if there were entire "coves" of MRA and PUA types based within individual companies such as Google.
I've done my share of reading up about these people, not mention actually browsing through their forums out of Bile Fascination, but would someone here kindly mind to provide their own tropers' input and a basic history of Redpill? The most unnerving thing about that thread is how someone who hasn't reach full adulthood or college age can be easily convinced by how "scientific" and "plausible" their discussions and arguments tend to be.
edited 7th Aug '17 12:20:21 PM by FluffyMcChicken
United Earth
Disentangling Bell Curve arguments is rhetorically exhausting.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
The law in the night
I can write something about the story of the red pill movement but not right now.
Inter arma enim silent leges
Men Who Attack Women Online Are, Literally, Losers
So this study showed a correlation between performance at video games (specifically, Halo 3) and attitudes towards women- the low-performing men were more likely to use sexist insults. I'm not sure I agree they way the story uses aggression and dominance to describe male social status (though it does have more merit in the context of gaming).
I think abusive behaviour in gaming communities does have something to do with the competitive nature of most online gaming, but to a certain extent it's also an extension of the (male-dominated corporate American) culture that produces a lot of those games.
Direct all enquiries to Jamie B Good
I remember that article from a while back. It's comforting but a bit self-congratulatory and IIRC the sample size was a bit small to draw definitive conclusions off of.
United Earth
Extra credits had done an essay with a similar thesis: winners play, win, and leave. It's losers that are desperate enough to resort to trash talk, sexist or otherwise.
And Bobby Fisher.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
No, the other one.
Well, I'd caveat that to exclude some of what happens at one-on-one competitions, where trash talk is more common. However, there it's more about unbalancing your opponent before or during the competitions, rather than after.
edited 9th Aug '17 11:47:26 AM by AnotherDuck
Check out my fanfiction!
This is the memorandum in question.
I won't copy out the whole lot here, but it starts with this message:
Reply to public response and misrepresentation
I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists, and don't endorse using stereotypes. When addressing the gap in representation in the population, we need to look at population level differences in distributions. If we can't have honest discussions about this, then we can never truly solve the problem.
Psychological safety is built upon mutual respect and acceptance, but unfortunately our culture of shaming and misrepresentation is disrespectful and unaccepting of anyone outside its echo chamber.
Despite what the public response seems to have been, I've gotten many personal messages from fellow Googlers expressing their gratitude for bringing up these very important issues which they agree with but would never have the courage to say or defend because of our shaming culture and the possibility of being fired. This needs to change.
edited 10th Aug '17 3:34:54 PM by TommyR01D
No, the other one.
Reading that, it kind of feels like watching an Extra Credits episode. A lot of talk, but ultimately, it lacks the substance and context necessary to put it into perspective, and to judge on anything outside its own narrative. And of what little actually has context, I find there are parts that are agreeable and parts that are disagreeable, which gives it a "cold reading" feel. A lot of it is, "more of this, less of that", which requires a comparison that's lacking. Most of that is assumed, but you can never be sure what someone else assumes. You can make educated guesses, and in many cases it ends up being something you wouldn't assume yourself.
Check out my fanfiction!
Causing freakouts over sourcing since 2018
Anyone uncritically using evolutionary psychology to justify why their ilk are the absolute, unrivaled best at their job is unlikely to be seeking a good faith debate (or good faith anything), given that the field in question is almost completely composed of snake oil vendors trying to justify why people of the same background as James Damore are the absolute, unrivaled best at any job ever.
I mean, what does this even mean?
James Damore has accomplished fuck all beyond becoming another martyr for neckbeards and opening up Google towards discrimination lawsuits.
It's almost completely stupid, but he does make one good point: that the male gender role is rather inflexible.
It's something I noticed. As a man, you have to do this and that or you're not a man (I do have at least that feeling). Whereas women can do pretty much whatever they want and be still seen as women. Though it seems minor, do you ever see men wearing dresses? I don't, and I wouldn't wear one, but that's only because people would instantly go "you're not really a man", even though (logically) it should be seen like a woman wearing pants.
Life's too short for being hectic.
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
I dunno where you go that women aren't treated like shit for not doing feminine things but I'd love to know, I've got a lotta friends who'd love to live there.
Oh really when?
"That means that if I see any man approaching my child, I can beat him up right away instead of wondering if he's meaning any good!"
edited 28th Jun '17 9:17:40 PM by hellomoto