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}
Regarding this, i think this tale is "as old as time", we do remember how it was claimed a while ago how "women can't rape" due to the sexist believe that only men can want sex and all "women are pure". Hell, to this day there are even some people who still believe that "men fuck, women get fucked".
Jupiterian Local
The idea is that if you didn't want to have sex, you wouldn't be aroused. Therefore arousal is consent, therefore it's impossible for penis-in-vagina sex to be the woman raping the man.
Which is bullshit, of course. Arousal is an involuntary physiological response to stimulus. It has absolutely nothing to do with whether they want to have sex.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
It is a idea that even some feminist belive at times, a issue with rape is the discorse around it have being build out enterely about woman, leaving men victim out of it.
A procrastination in of itself
The stupidity of that argument should be additionally obvious from how it could be applied to other situations of sexual assault. Children cannot consent, but obviously their bodies can react to stimulation, likewise I’m pretty sure there have been cases of raped women’s bodies reacting to stimulation, that doesn’t somehow make what happened to them not rape.
That’s before we even touch rape situations where the victim is active but non-consensually so, usually due to threats or other force.
Edited by Silasw on Jul 5th 2021 at 11:35:11 AM
"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran
Sue but that is how people have react, for a long time rape havebeing abut how damage the person need to be in order to gain sympathy for their plight, is only now that verbal consent is use as proof in is own right.
I know it's not a good-faith argument to begin with, but the whole "you had an erection, so you consented" thing never made sense because everyone and their grandma knows that spontaneous erections when you don't want them are a thing. This is not not some surprising or uncommon knowledge.
Fits in Heavy's pocket!
I dunno, I remember a lot of girls in school who had to have it explained that "No, he's not being a creep, he doesn't want you to draw attention to it in the middle of damn class, he's embarrassed enough as it is."
The last thing you hear before an unstoppable juggernaut bisects you with a minigun.
Oh, bother.
It doesn't help that there's a non-zero chance that the guy is genuinely being a creep about it. Though tbf, this is more likely the case with adults.
I guess the idea is that by the time they've reached adulthood, they're better able to hide their arousal (and just generally being less prone to it than they were as teenagers). Meaning if it's visible, they want it to be visible.
Disgusted, but not surprised
Seems reasonable to have to explain this to school-aged girls. Adults have no such excuse, though.
The Draftsman of Doom
Yeah. That's reasonable.
Apologies if this has already been discussed, but I would like to raise attention to disrespect for male dignity in healthcare and physical education. It is widely documented that in these situations - both in the present and historically - there is often a vast disparity in treatment of the sexes: a great effort is made to preserve the modesty of women and girls but men and boys are given none at all.
One particularly prominent example is that of school swimming lessons, where it was reasonably common for girls to be allowed swimming costumes but girls to be allowed to swim nude.[1]
Other stories discuss "the physical" at school where boys were subjected to intimate examination in large open spaces with any number of uninvolved strangers milling around whereas girls were given much lighter treatment, and hospital/carehome settings where female patients were scrupulously covered up while the males are inspected by all and sundry.
Some websites I have discovered: patientmodesty.org sexualmisconductbydoctors.com patientprivacyreview.blogspot.com
They are about documenting examples of mistreatment by the medical profession - such as disregard for privacy, insistence on unnecessary procedures and, of course, good ol' molestation. There are plenty of examples of both sexes suffering and I have no wish to dismiss the female victims but it is clear that there is a huge difference in overall standards between women's treatment and men's.
Hrm. I don't think this has ever been discussed here. Yes, I see that there is a double standard here where women are accorded (or: expected) more privacy than men.
Granted, I think there is a fair argument to make that modesty is a harmful concept - people using intimate videos to extort others and rape victims citing shame as their principal reason for not going to the police, for example - and that the solution thus should be loosening up the rules for women.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Fits in Heavy's pocket!
That still wouldn't solve the problem of people not being granted privacy when they want it.
And gonna put in, wanting to be modest or private or cover up isn't bad. It's a personal choice.
The last thing you hear before an unstoppable juggernaut bisects you with a minigun.
A procrastination in of itself
I can even think of an example form my own life, in primary schools (so age about 9-10) when getting changed for sports the girls would get changed in the classroom and the boys would get changed in the corridor in the area where we kept our bags and coats.
It’s a small thing, but the expectation was that the girls needed privacy and that the boys did not.
"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran
^^Thing is, there is a big difference between "some people want this" and "it is a good idea" and a lot of society's problems come from people mistaking the former for the latter.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Fits in Heavy's pocket!
Sorry, I'm not sure what you're arguing for here, exactly.
I'm reading it as "Being granted privacy when changing, discussing intimate topics, etc, is not a good thing." but I'm aware I'm probably reading it very wrong.
The last thing you hear before an unstoppable juggernaut bisects you with a minigun.
Sort of. My thinking is that expectations of privacy/modesty are often used to people's detriment and thus, one has to be careful before expanding such expectations.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Fits in Heavy's pocket!
Ah, right. As someone who quite likes her privacy and personal space, especially with shit like changing and whatnot, I don't think I'm gonna agree with you on that one. I call the shots on who sees me naked and when, nobody else gets to make those choices for me.
So, I don't think the solution to men and boys not being given adequate privacy is to take it away from women and girls too.
Edited by Murataku on Aug 9th 2021 at 8:10:01 PM
The last thing you hear before an unstoppable juggernaut bisects you with a minigun.
Aye, I totally understand that. I'd not be personally very happy at the prospect either ... but in an abstract policy/social mores discussion I think it's important to watch for unintended consequences.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
I think a lot of it comes from the focus on purity culture, especially for women, and the idea that being seen naked devalues a woman's nudity/sexuality for her husband. Men, on the other hand, aren't objects to be perceived, but the ones who do the perceiving. It purports a worldview where men are the only valid source of sexual interest and women are the only valid object of it - thus men looking at men cannot be sexual, and women certainly can't be the perceivers in that interplay. It neatly ignores male victims of (female and male) rapists and pedophiles.
(Obviously sarcastic) Yay, toxic masculinity.
It's been fun.
Fits in Heavy's pocket!
I dunno if that's the full reasoning, though. From what I've seen society does have an issue with continually neglecting men's physical and mental needs and wants in favour of treating them as invincible and expendable. This feels like an extension of that. "Of course you're not uncomfortable with this. Quit complaining."
I'd say it's for a variety of reasons.
Edited by Murataku on Aug 9th 2021 at 9:08:20 PM
The last thing you hear before an unstoppable juggernaut bisects you with a minigun.
so i made a new avatar
I'd argue that this is only true conditionally. Looking at men is totally sexual when:
- One wants to convince himself some woman at a bar he accidentally locked eyes with for a second "totally wants it"
- Gay paranoia leads him to think his best friend might be gay for looking at another man 0.2 seconds too long
Frankly the rules change whenever we want them to and according to whatever we need them to be at any given time to uphold toxic masculinity.
To pity someone is to tell them "I feel bad about being better than you."
@Murataku: Right, but I see that as a related expression of the same central thing. Men act, they're not acted on; they're active, not passive; Men Act, Women Are, so men want, take, do. Of course, that view excludes all the men and boys who don't fit its very narrow definition, and is content to let them be victimized and suffer in silence because they aren't the "right sort" of man to benefit from the enforced standard of masculinity.
Though I'm nowhere near an expert on this sort of thing, and I'm sure the thread doesn't need someone coming in going "well actually, it's toxic masculinity" every two pages or so.
It's been fun.
The Draftsman of Doom
Bluntly, I don't care whose idea it was that SA survivors should have to pay child support. It just doesn't make sense to make a rape survivor pay child support for a Child by Rape. Whoever came up with that idea should be removed from office.
I am writing a novel, and in the first chapter, one of the main characters had previously dumped her asshole boyfriend over his lack of empathy for victims of sexual abuse in addition to mistreating her.
Rawr.
I don't think we have evidence here that these crackpot views have gained sufficient currency, though.
Where does Koss get the idea from that arousal has any connection to consent, anyway? I am willing to bet they don't even involve the same parts of the brain.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman