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
I don't see any evidence that it's remotely popular. That just sounds like a fringe far-right position.
"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn
A procrastination in of itself
Yeah, a couple thousand Twitter hearts is pretty meaningless even in Twitter terms, and Twitter is not representative of the general population.
"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran
An interesting video about "War on Traditional Masculinity":
A procrastination in of itself
Can you summarise it for us? Not everyone is able to watch videos.
"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran
Okay, for those who can't watch, Thought Slime talks about the recent "wake" of conservatives and republicans, who scream that "democrates and libs want to destroy traditional masculinity" and how "it is purely biological for men to be "manly and competitive" (implying that this is the reason men get more job variety) and women be submissive".
At 2:37 time mark, some guy, Professor Jordan B. Peterson says that it is "unnatural" for men to be anything but "manly" and that "progressives only destroying the natural biological structure".
Also Thought Slime mockes the idea from alt-right that people who "come out" as trans, doing it purely for "brownie points", referencing Jim Sterling telling how they "come out" and how it made their life harder, because they lost some subscribers and people started to harass them even more than it was before.
In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good.
If it were essential you couldn't "destroy" it. If you can destroy it, it isn't essential. This is a non-argument even if you accept the conservatives' premise. Either they have nothing to fear or they have nothing of value to lose (that they'd be willing to admit, it's all about preserving privilege of course).
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Yup, Thought Slime makes the exact argument in the video. Masculinity can only be under attack if it's at least partially socially constructed. Their argument is critically and self-evidently flawed.
Jupiterian Local
That doesn't follow. A jet engine is essential to a continued flight of an airplane, but if I throw a grenade into it, the engine is going to be destroyed. "It can be destroyed, therefore it's not necessary" is not a valid argument.
Which of course, doesn't mean the logic they're advancing about biologically-based gender roles is correct. Most obviously, even if it was "natural" (which is far from a given), just because something is natural doesn't make it good.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Yeah, something being esencial dosent mean it can be destroy, if anything is the oposite: Something being esencial make it vulnerable the whole thing fall apart.
This of course dosent change that the right use naturalist fallacy "it is natural, ergo it must happen" of course.
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"
The definition of essential being used here means "intrinsic". If it's part of someone's innate essence then there's no way it can be destroyed.
It's been fun.
In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good.
Yes, thank you. I meant essential as being a things very essence. It's eternal and unchangeable nature.
You can't claim both, that something is unchangeable and also that it's in danger of being done away with.
Edited by Antiteilchen on Jul 3rd 2021 at 1:46:19 PM
Jupiterian Local
Sure it can. Doing so just changes the thing into something else. That's exactly what conservatives are complaining about.
If you have a pepperoni pizza, pepperonis are essential to it. Without pepperoni, a pepperoni pizza is not a pepperoni pizza. But you can still start with a pepperoni pizza and then take the pepperoni off. You have removed the pepperoni essence of the pepperoni pizza. Now it's not a pepperoni pizza anymore — it's a cheese pizza.
This is the argument being made about gender. If you take men and remove their ability to be masculine (by their standards of what constitutes masculinity), then they are no longer men. What they are is debatable, but it isn't "a man" anymore, it's something else. This is, according to them, a bad thing.
There are any number of ways to counter this argument. But the argument isn't self-defeating on its face. Just because a quality is intrinsic doesn't mean it's inviolate.
Edited by NativeJovian on Jul 3rd 2021 at 10:18:04 AM
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good.
No, the conservative argument very much is that masculinity is inviolate. That's why we shouldn't attempt to change it. Because if it isn't inviolate, it becomes subject to critique. They would therefore have to defend masculinity with actual arguments. This in turn would reveal what they actually want to protect.
You can see this best in attacks against transgender people. They claim that no matter what you do, (be it behavior, HRT or surgery) a transwoman is just a "man in a dress".
Jupiterian Local
You're strawmanning the position so you can dismiss it, but to be honest I don't have the energy to argue for "they're wrong but not for the reasons you're insisting they are." When you're trying to convince people, it's best to attack the strongest form of an opponent's argument so that you can overturn their entire position in one go, instead of disproving a weaker argument, which allows them to retreat to a stronger position, and then you have to disprove that one anyway.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good.
No? That's exactly how they talk about trans folk.
Sure, smarter conservatives can come up with rationalizations that men need to be a certain way for society to function. But I already said that. They would than actually have to defend masculinity and why it needs to be that way. I literally wrote that.
It's not like it's uncommon for people to make two separate, often contradictory arguments at the same time.
Both of the things you two are talking about are definitely arguments people make. The "it's just nature and you can't change it so why bother trying" argument and the "it'll make men worse to change these things, so stop it" argument.
so i made a new avatar
It's not like it's uncommon for people to make two separate, often contradictory arguments at the same time.
In fact, this is often a cornerstone of conservative "debate" tactics.
To pity someone is to tell them "I feel bad about being better than you."
I'd go as far as to say that it's the cornerstone of conservative ideology as well.
At least the parts they say out loud.
"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn
Nah, it's just a sign that different people have different priorities and when you don't agree you often perceive contradictions, but these are purely subjective.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Not at all, I strongly disagree with anarchists and yet I have no trouble recognizing that their views are intellectually consistent and can even have merit sometimes.
It's that Conservative idealogy specifically runs on cognitive dissonance.
"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn
In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good.
It's certainly easier to spot and acknowledge contradictions when you're not invested in an ideology. But what Native Jovian said isn't wrong. You could make a congruent argument that condemns gender non-conformity as dangerous and maintains that toxic masculinity is essential to a society. But to do that you need to admit that you want to have an unequal society, where you can rule over others. But modern conservatives are too cowardly to admit it. Probably even to themselves. So you get all the contradictions and rationalizations.
Moreover, arguments that men and women have to behave a certain way for society to function, are falsifiable. And it would be on them to prove that it is indeed necessary. It's easier to just spout contradictory arguments and fallacies.
A nice butterfly
Jordan Peterson's whole ideology runs on essentialism and within psychology the concept is, very sadly, enshrined and maintained as something "valid" (Despite being statistically bunk) due to politics.
He and his arguments can go fuck themselves.
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
The Draftsman of Doom
I didn't come here to to hear about some celebrity psychologist and his crackpot theories.
I came here to discuss the problems affecting the human male.
Research indicates, however, that men can be stimulated and achieve an erection in times of fear and terror, despite not being aroused. Studies range from cases where men report arousal during assault, to scientific experiments that find men have erections under many non-sexual circumstances, including when they are unconscious.
In her research, Myriam Denov, a professor at McGill University who holds the Canada Research Chair in Youth, Gender and Armed Conflict, asserted: "The professional assumption that sexual abuse by women is less harmful than similar abuse by men has potentially dangerous implications for [male] victims of sexual abuse. If professionals fail to recognize sexual abuse by women as potentially serious and harmful, child protection plans will not be made."
She goes on to say that, as a result, the experiences of male victims who come forward to disclose sexual abuse by women may be trivialized. These misconceptions can lead to a delayed referral to social services or failure to provide victims with the care and support they require. Until the idea that women cannot rape men and other rape myths are dispelled, cases where victims are misunderstood and mistreated, and even made to pay child support to their former abusers, are likely to continue.
I certainly do not think that any rapist should be granted custody of their own Child by Rape.
Rather, the child should either be raised by the survivor, or placed in the custody of an unrelated party.
That is why I am so salty about psychopaths like Zoe Laverne reproducing, and not being made to face the consequences of their actions.
I am also salty about Bill Cosby being released from prison. If I were the judge, I would let him rot.
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Fair point. Like I said before, though, men especially treat their own gender like drek. In particular, when it comes to sexual assault.
Edited by SkyCat32 on Jul 5th 2021 at 1:11:22 PM
Rawr.
His crackpot theories affect men and what is considered "manly", especially when his supporters claim that "there is a war in traditional masculinity" taking place. Don't dismiss it as something "only a few jerks believe".
Edited by VeryVileVillian on Jul 5th 2021 at 8:06:52 PM
Okay, why is the take "World War 2 dissolved the Gene pool and killed nearly all REAL Men and allowed soy boy cucks and woke sissies to take over", like this
, is popular now. Thats some next level bs insecurity at play. I ask because as of late, i see it in many places now and it is repeated consntantly as a genuine arguments.