[RD] Feminism

[Timsup2nothin]

I doubt there would be an actual legal case - two drunk people in a relationship going at it, and one asking for a threesome, is NOT, in any way, shape or form, possible to interpret as "rape". If it does, then we can scrap "rape" as a meaningful word.

Agreed. Of course the conversation hasn't been about rape at all, so I don't see the relevance. Whether "in a relationship" or not, if her arguments were accompanied by intimate physical contact (an assumption I have already acknowledged that I was making) charges of sexual assault would be warranted if reported. They may not lead to a conviction, because there would probably be no witness or evidence to tip the scales if she denied it, but that doesn't change the crime itself...just the convictability.

 

[Synobun]

Yeah, but I don't remember Civver complaining that his ex-GF is not in jail. I remember him complaining of the double-standard when it comes to abuse, and the several previous posts kind of confirm this impression on this very specific point.

I am not sure that Civver can seriously pursue that train of thought here since he has been staunchly against the idea of patriarchal undertones in society. If he wants to chase after the double standard when it comes to men reporting women for abuse, he'll come to find that a majority of rhetoric in that scenario is denigrating the man for being so weak that he can be abused by someone as subservient or lesser as a woman.

I'm not disagreeing that there's a double standard because there absolutely is, but I'm not sure it can be argued that there's a double standard as a result of women being superior. It seems to me that it's more likely that women come out on top because it's a woman's weakness being used as a negative judgement on the man (allowing himself to be abused, in the eyes of society).

 

[civver_764]

The closest they come is a few rough sketches that don't amount to more than pop-psychology, like the rightfully-abused "friendzone", and begin to fade quickly into borderline-conspiracy theories about feminist-infiltration of political and educational institutions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men's_rights_movement#Issues

I'm intensely sceptical of this claim, but even if I wasn't: isn't that an affirmation of my claim?

Why are you "intensely" skeptical? Their feelings of despair are related to not having their kids. It's like pouring salt on the wounds.

I was just going through this last month. My ex wouldn't let me see my daughter, and I was terrified to show any emotion about this for fear of being labelled too "emotionally unstable" to be in my daughter's life. She even tried to use the fact that I was upset about her withholding my daughter as evidence that I was "abusive".

It's ok for these people to be emotional, and it feels like you're shaming them for having bad things happen to them in life. It's like you see them as balls of hatred that just came out of nowhere. Please have some empathy.

Privilege theory is a specific sociological theory, or set of theories. Saying that societies have broadly favoured men is not privlege theory, any more than saying that rich people have exploited poor people is Marxism.

Ok well I'm not talking about "privilege theory", I'm talking about "societies have broadly favored men". Call it whatever you want.

Those are real issues, I agree. But what does the so-called "men's rights movement" offer as a solution? As far as I can tell, it offers nothing more than a vague sense of validation.

The sense of validation is important, I can personally attest to that. A major website in the movement A Voice For Men's purported mission is to "change the cultural narrative". I think that's good, because so many of these issues aren't really ever heard about. It encourages men in abusive relationships to speak out, and gives them a space to vent. It also advocates for policy changes where appropriate (shared parenting initiatives for example).

The movement is still in its infancy, is widely demonized, and doesn't really have a whole lot of resources. That's important to keep in mind.

I think you're seeing him in an excessively negative way.
I have more of a "if I wasn't considered a victim when it happened to me, why are they considered victims when it happen to them ?". It's a rather valid feeling of injustice.

It was more of just a "women abuse men too". I never had any intentions of pressing charges, or even telling anybody.

 

[Lexicus]

Well, that's what I meant when I originally said that "society broadly favours men". Civver interpreted that as an assertion of the phenomenon of "male privilege", which isn't unreasonable, because privilege theory is the prevailing wisdom on the left, but it's not a wisdom I subscribe to.

Well, what you described is exactly what I think of when I think of male privilege, so as I said I don't really grok the distinction you're making. I'm unaware of anyone who believes "privilege" is an actual mechanism for explaining the existence of oppression/inequality.

 

[civver_764]

I'm not disagreeing that there's a double standard because there absolutely is, but I'm not sure it can be argued that there's a double standard as a result of women being superior.

Female privilege the most obvious reason. You have to take extra mental steps to blame it on "patriarchy". Again, is it really a patriarchy if men are the ones disadvantaged? We're all ignoring the obvious answer right in front of our noses.

 

[Synobun]

Female privilege the most obvious reason. You have to take extra mental steps to blame it on "patriarchy". Again, is it really a patriarchy if men are the ones disadvantaged? We're all ignoring the obvious answer right in front of our noses.

This is a discussion that's already been had in this thread and I'm personally unwilling to have it again so soon. Patriarchal undertones are not a conscious mechanism from which society is governed and it is not a circumstance that rules in men's favour 100% of the time. Men can be disadvantaged by a mechanism that places them as passively superior because their shortcomings or personal misfortunes can be, and usually are, construed as weakness equal or worse to that of a woman's.

 

[civver_764]

This is a discussion that's already been had in this thread and I'm personally unwilling to have it again so soon. Patriarchal undertones are not a conscious mechanism from which society is governed and it is not a circumstance that rules in men's favour 100% of the time. Men can be disadvantaged by a mechanism that places them as passively superior because their shortcomings or personal misfortunes can be, and usually are, construed as weakness equal or worse to that of a woman's.

It just grinds my gears how it always has to be phrased so that it's just a side effect of the REAL oppression towards women. And also, why are we calling it "patriarchy"? That clearly has connotations with "men" or "this is the male gender's fault". We should call it what it is, gender roles.

 

[Synobun]

It just grinds my gears how it always has to be phrased so that it's just a side effect of the REAL oppression towards women. And also, why are we calling it "patriarchy"? That clearly has connotations with "men" or "this is the male gender's fault". We should call it what it is, gender roles.

It's called patriarchy because men are portrayed as the passive superior while women are portrayed as the passive inferior. When women are advantaged, it is usually as a result of their perceived weakness. There are exceptions to this such as custody court battles but that's the rub of it. These are exceptions. Still bad, still need to be addressed, but they don't do much to disprove the overarching claim. Most in favour of equality are also in favour of having problems like that addressed.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Also, I'm still waiting for an answer to this :

Actually, I'd like to know what would be the opinion of people in this thread about a situation where a drunk male would fondle and kiss a woman who was uncomfortable with it.

What would you call that ?

A situation somewhat similar happened to me at a science fiction convention. The man wasn't drunk (that I could tell), but he had a habit of walking up to women and rubbing them on the back, the neck, the shoulders, and so on. Some women just accepted it (maybe they knew him and liked the attention, or maybe they thought it would be rude to tell him to stop). I didn't. The first time, I just moved out of the way to indicate that I wasn't receptive. The second time - later that day - I told him, "please don't do that."

The third time? Right in the middle of the mezzanine, Saturday evening, I'm in hall costume, there are a lot of people around, and he still didn't get it. So I wasn't polite that time, and not inclined to be discreet. I just told him, "I've indicated twice that I don't want you to do this. I asked you not to. So just STOP IT."

Whereupon he put on a hurt expression and protested that everyone else liked it. I told him that's fine for others, if they liked it, but I didn't.

So he did stop, but a fourth attempt would have resulted in reporting him to con security. This wasn't a situation that would have warranted cops, but dammit, when someone says "no" or "stop" to unwanted physical contact, the one doing the contact is expected to abide by that.

 

[Spoonwood]

That men are more privileged than women along the axis of sex is not really up for debate. It is simply a fact.

The fact is that men have had more rights than women for most of human history, in most of the world.

Feminists want the two to be equal.

It is plainly INCORRECT to say that in plenty of industrialized countries that men have more rights than women. In the United States women have more rights than men under the law. A user named Emily Bright summarizes this nicely.

And to anyone who maintains that men are more privileged women legally speaking, then I challenge you to spell out those privileges, especially anything relevant to law and governance. Emily Bright and some other people do that for men having fewer rights than women under the law in the referenced quora above and thus satisfies a decent burden of proof. And in general, a good proposition can get backed up with an argument or evidence for that proposition, not some questionable appeal to authority sort of hand-waving "it is simply a fact".

We also haven't even talked about obligations under the law, have we? Do I need to remind people in a civilization forum that historically speaking men have had to defend a nation often by forced conscription while women didn't have similar obligations to the state? Failing to register with the Selective Service System is still a felony, men sometimes can't get or have trouble getting student loans, and there even existed a court case a few years ago showing real world problems, because of the Selective Service System.

 

[civver_764]

It's called patriarchy because men are portrayed as the passive superior while women are portrayed as the passive inferior. When women are advantaged, it is usually as a result of their perceived weakness. There are exceptions to this such as custody court battles but that's the rub of it. These are exceptions. Still bad, still need to be addressed, but they don't do much to disprove the overarching claim. Most in favour of equality are also in favour of having problems like that addressed.

You're just spinning the narrative to make the reader think "oh those poor women". This is just the feminist version of events.

Instead of talking about women's "perceived weakness" why don't we talk about their perceived value, and the perceived disposability of men?

 

[JollyRoger]

And in general, a good proposition can get backed up with an argument or evidence for that proposition, not some questionable appeal to authority sort of hand-waving "it is simply a fact".

So why is the gist of your argument an appeal to the authority of Emily Bright?

 

[Synobun]

You're just spinning the narrative to make the reader think "oh those poor women". This is feminist propaganda.

Instead of talking about women's "perceived weakness" why don't we talk about their perceived value, and the perceived disposability of men?

I'm not a feminist and don't personally see women as hapless victims of men in the west now. It would be wise to not dismiss what I say as propaganda lest others do it to you.

 

[civver_764]

Sorry, I changed my post. I wasn't trying to dismiss you, and I think I did address your point directly with the second part of my post.

 

[Spoonwood]

So why is the gist of your argument an appeal to the authority of Emily Bright?

I didn't want to self-reference my own post there. Her summary is also quicker and probably easier to read and follow than my discursive writing there.

For some of those points...

1. Women have the right to genital integrity. Men don't.

2. Women have the right to legal parental surrender. Men don't.

3. Women get shorter sentences on average for conviction of similar crimes.

4. Female victims of sexual violence or domestic violence are more readily identified by the system than male victims of sexual violence or domestic violence.

5. There exists special offices concentrating on women's health, but none on men's health.

6. And less seriously, perhaps, business sometimes give special discounts to women, but not to men. Alright, the last point is not the law doing anything. But, wouldn't the law probably prosecute a business that gave special discounts to men harshly, but they sort of turn the other way when anyone starts talking about how some businesses discriminate against men?

 

[JollyRoger]

The first two points seem to be bald assertions with no real argument. Numbers 3-5, if true, seem to be the patriarchy at work. As to number 6, many dry cleaning establishments charge less to clean a man's shirt than a woman's blouse.

 

[Hygro]

Bullcrap. Putting men in the military has nothing to do with some sort of nefarious plan to prevent women getting power. It has to do with an ingrained worldview that women are unable to be fighters and that's the exclusive "role" of men.
(not to say this worldview is/was true, just that it existed and was prevalent)

...a worldview and system that wouldn't reproduce if you trained your oppressed class to be fighters.

That is one theory of the draft, I provided an alternative. What's your point?

No you didn't, because there's no matriarchy. And if there was a matriarchy, training your men to fight and not your women would undermine it. Take Rome, almost an entire generation of Roman men died fighting Hannibal when he crossed the alps. The women never took power. The remaining men were the ones with the means of violence and their society continued as it was. If you disagree that Rome was a patriarchy... well I will enjoy that.

 

[civver_764]

No you didn't, because there's no matriarchy. And if there was a matriarchy, training your men to fight and not your women would undermine it.

Training them to die for women and protect them certainly would uphold it.

I'm not saying there's a matriarchy, I'm just saying you equally argue for a matriarchy as you can for a patriarchy.

Take Rome, almost an entire generation of Roman men died fighting Hannibal when he crossed the alps. The women never took power. The remaining men were the ones with the means of violence and their society continued as it was. If you disagree that Rome was a patriarchy... well I will enjoy that.

Well they died protecting the women from Hannibal's armies. Also, I want to point out that you've got some kind of messed up "gender warfare" view of the world. Why would women want to "take power"? Men and women work together to create societies. Traditionally, men were delegated to the political realm, that doesn't mean that women were being oppressed by them.

 

[Hygro]

Training them to die for women and protect them certainly would uphold it.

I'm not saying there's a matriarchy, I'm just saying you equally argue for a matriarchy as you can for a patriarchy.

Well they died protecting the women from Hannibal's armies. Also, I want to point out that you've got some kind of messed up "gender warfare" view of the world. Why would women want to "take over"? Men and women work together to create societies. Traditionally, men were delegated to the political realm, that doesn't mean that women were being oppressed by them.

Let me make this easier for you: how many slave-based societies send their slaves to war and stayed powerful? Is it because the slaves convinced them to put them into a protected class to be fought for, because the slaves were the powerful? Was the existence of the Spartan warrior class the "equally arguable" evidence that they were a slaveocracy?

 

[Lexicus]

Let me make this easier for you: how many slave-based societies send their slaves to war and stayed powerful? Is it because the slaves convinced them to put them into a protected class to be fought for, because the slaves were the powerful? Was the existence of the Spartan warrior class the "equally arguable" evidence that they were a slaveocracy?

The Mamluks and the Ottomans did. But I guess they weren't really "slave-based" societies, in that while slavery was present it was not the dominant labor system by any means.