The Rights of Men

[JollyRoger]

I'm sorry but it is biased. If absolutely everyone agreed with that then it wouldn't be biased, but it's quite clear that not only do a significant number of people NOT believe that, but that that lack of belief is probably highest in the precise demographic you are hoping to engage in discussion. Even if you think they are demonstrably wrong to not believe that, you have to accept that and not insist that they adopt your position before you even start the dialogue.

It would be like an atheist trying to open up a dialogue with a Christian by saying "let us start by first acknowledging that God, or indeed any gods, or indeed the supernatural at large, does not actually exist."

Now I'm not saying that a lack of belief in male privilege is as fundamentally linked to a concern for men's issues as a belief in God is linked to Christianity, but it is still a thing and it is a position people hold and it's not really much of a dialogue if you're insisting the other side has to agree to your worldview before even beginning to talk.

Given your passion for the privilege of other posters opening up a men's rights thread by bashing women, it seems a bit rich that you are complaining about a fairly reasonable OP on the topic of men's rights. I know it is flawed in that it does not take a swipe at women, but I think it generally sets a mature tone. If you do not think male privilege exists, I suppose the best response would be to explain why.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Given your passion for the privilege of other posters opening up a men's rights thread by bashing women, it seems a bit rich that you are complaining about a fairly reasonable OP on the topic of men's rights. I know it is flawed in that it does not take a swipe at women, but I think it generally sets a mature tone. If you do not think male privilege exists, I suppose the best response would be to explain why.

Sorry, but this is a rather gross misrepresentation of what I actually said in the other thread, which is a bit disappointing given how many times I reiterated the point to try and make it clear. Also, isn't that a bit personal attacky and off-tone for an RD thread?

For those who care, here are the posts in question where I allegedly expressed a passion for opening up a men's rights thread by bashing women. I believe that the opinion I was expressing is quite reasonable, that I made it reasonably clearly, and that it illustrates no such passion, but I'll let you judge my words for yourself:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=14047725&postcount=316

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=14049044&postcount=362

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=14050063&postcount=364

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=14050580&postcount=370

 

[Leoreth]

People will always have deep seeded assumptions of others based on age/sex/culture. Most of these are bs.

[...]

Gender roles seems like a taboo subject in the modern 1st world. Either you're some weirdo "family values" person who believes in 1 man, 1 woman, missionary position only & god bless America or on the other extreme that gender roles are irrelevant and should be ignored/not discussed even tho their influence is apparent & undeniable.

Anyway, my first post was a little less tangenty but let me post this before I lose this too.

I agree with most of this post (especially the part about toxic masculinity), and I realize you are paraphrasing a better formulated version of it, but I still want to address the bold parts.

Are they actually true? Of course the influence of gender roles is apparent and undeniable, but that does not mean that they are unchanging or unchangeable. The degree to which they matter is already different from person to person. That strongly suggests that they are at least in part influenced by social norms. Which makes it worth (or at least possible) trying to change how people view gender, so I don't understand the fatalism. The fact that it's impossible to get people to completely stop judging others based on some reductive aspect of their identity doesn't prevent us from working towards it.

One of the problems is that privilege is often not well discussed.

Often when privilege is brought up it's used to mean, or misunderstood to mean, "you people have it easy so shut up and stop whining", and then it becomes something used to either dismiss the problems/concerns/perspectives of others.

"Check your privilege" is something I often wanted to say if it wasn't such a loaded phrase. All it means is to remind people of their personal stake in this sort of discussion. It's a shame it has become so confrontational in tone.

But, that's a matter of opinion.

Everything we are talking about in OT is opinions. Don't act as if discussion stops there.

(By the way, that you're content to shrug and essentially say "let's agree to disagree" is already a product of your privilege.)

I hope that one day we can have shelters for men to take refuge in when they face domestic violence, rape, or other issues.

Or even better, just plain shelters for domestic violence etc. because domestic violence does not have a gender component anymore.

I would argue that a thread that purports to be about men's rights issues, but then the OP just goes on to talk about recognising privilege and that men's rights issues all stem from how the privileged see themselves, isn't really getting off on the right foot. At best it's a very biased way to start the discussion.

You're basically saying "firstly, let's all agree that feminist theory is correct about everything, that the Patriarchy is "a thing", and that men are all privileged, and let's discuss men's rights issues in that context". Which I suppose is all well and good if you want a very limited and narrow discussion that is probably going to exclude most of the people who are motivated to say anything on the subject right from the off.

Well, most discussions start with the assumption that feminism is a crazy ideology that is out of touch with reality, and those don't even make that part explicit. So this is a nice change of perspective in multiple ways.

 

[warpus]

Or even better, just plain shelters for domestic violence etc. because domestic violence does not have a gender component anymore.

Women who were abused by men might not feel comfortable in a shelter where men are present. I can understand that argument, even if not everyone is going to have such "no men here" needs.

As such it seems we need distinct shelters for both genders, instead of one type of shelter for both.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I didn't say everyone had to agree with my post. I just put it out there, and hoped if people disagreed they would say why. In fact, I'm glad you've disagreed, and you were one of the people I was hoping would post on this thread, since you are one of the more eloquent skeptics of feminism (the movement) on CFC.

Okay well that's fair enough then. As I said, I realise the discussion has to begin somewhere and that some sort of OP has to be written that actually says something, and I do acknowledge that you didn't actually say it was anything but your own opinion. I apologise if I was overly critical.

While I'm flattered by the last sentence, I would have to caution you about expecting too much I tend to be more of a "reacting to things I disagree with" type, rather than an "actively posting my own opinions" type. I'd also say I was more of an anti-feminist at heart than someone who has any direct concern with men's rights issues themselves.

 

[jackelgull]

I want to use this post to clarify my position on male privilege. It is a bit of a doozy, so hang on with me here.

1) Male privilege had legal consequences in the past. This is where I am starting from. In the past, a woman could not be raped by her husband according to the law, she needed her husband's permission to conduct business etc.
2) To justify these legal consequences, certain thought processes about men and women were adopted by society as a whole. Thus came the idea that women were weaker than men, physically and emotionally, thus came the idea that women aren't driven by sexual need, thus comes the idea that women are passive creatures etc.
3)The feminist movement has challenged and knocked down these legal barriers by and large. They have also challenged how society views women.
4) So traces of male privilege still exist in the left over thought processes of those times, but they are on their way out, and the actual tangible consequences of those beliefs is hard to measure.
5) Male privilege must not be conflated with other more potent privileges.By that I mean, don't assume because a person is male they are as privileged as a rich women. That rich women is more privileged than that man any day, because the law does favor rich people, and trying to dismantle the privilege of the wealthy is something I believe can't be done, and the attitudes that empower the rich are stubbornly embedded into society (ie the poor deserve their poverty).

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Women who were abused by men might not feel comfortable in a shelter where men are present. I can understand that argument, even if not everyone is going to have such "no men here" needs.

As such it seems we need distinct shelters for both genders, instead of one type of shelter for both.

I think it's a rather collectivist argument that paints "men" as a homogenous group. It doesn't seem to be how most people react to most other situations. If a woman has just been attacked by a man, would she necessarily be frightened by male police officers turning up to help her? If I'd just been mugged by an Asian gang, would I insist that no Asian police offers come to my aid? And what about women who are victims of domestic violence at the hands of other women, or men who are victims of other men? Where would they go? I'd be interested if there were any figures on what actual female victims feel about this, rather than just taking what the people who run the shelters say as gospel. I'd personally suspect that such victims would develop a fear of the individual who abuses them, rather than the entire gender that they are a member of. Happy to be proven wrong though. But it's a small point as equal provision of gender-specific shelters would solve the issue anyway (apart from with the aforementioned same-sex abuse cases).

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I want to use this post to clarify my position on male privilege. I think it must also be taken into account how male privilege interacts with other privileges, most notably class privilege. A rich white woman is always going to be in a more privileged position than a poor black male.

Wealth is the great privilege maker, and it is one that I don't see ever being done away with. However, the legal pillars that used to uphold male privilege have mostly been dismantled, and now all that's left is the attitudes that resulted from male privilege, which I believe are partly where men's rights issue stem for. I also believe it also partly stems from how those who were previously negatively affected by the legal barriers created by male privilege view men.

It's a very poor term for describing what is, at best, a lack of certain specific disadvantages. A privilege is not a lack of a disadvantage. This may be arguing semantics, but the word "privilege" has a specific definition and if you say "male privilege" then that paints a certain picture in the listener's head about being handed certain advantages or rights or honours simply by virtue of being male, and this doesn't happen.

I agree that there are a whole host of factors that influence what any individual can achieve or aspire to, or have access to or whatever else, but I don't see that a ticklist of "privileges" is the best way to assess or talk about that. People are individuals, and to assign them characteristics based on some broad average of any demographics they are part of (even if you make them "intersect") and then judge them based on THOSE, is always going to be far less accurate than simply judging the individual. Just because men, on average, may occupy some slightly preferential level in society as a whole, does not mean that any individual man is in any way "privileged" by this, or given membership to some exclusive club, because he shares the same junk. If any individual man is complaining to you about issues he faces, or issues some other specific group of men face, then assessing the worthiness of the claim based on the average position/conditions of all men as a whole is a meaningless exercise.

 

[jackelgull]

I believe I did not explain my position the best. I edited my post for greater clarification.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I believe I did not explain my position the best. I edited my post for greater clarification.

To be fair I was commenting on the general concept of "privilege" and how it seems to be applied, rather than on anything you said specifically, but I'll go back and re-read.

 

[warpus]

I think it's a rather collectivist argument that paints "men" as a homogenous group. It doesn't seem to be how most people react to most other situations. If a woman has just been attacked by a man, would she necessarily be frightened by male police officers turning up to help her? If I'd just been mugged by an Asian gang, would I insist that no Asian police offers come to my aid? And what about women who are victims of domestic violence at the hands of other women, or men who are victims of other men? Where would they go? I'd be interested if there were any figures on what actual female victims feel about this, rather than just taking what the people who run the shelters say as gospel. I'd personally suspect that such victims would develop a fear of the individual who abuses them, rather than the entire gender that they are a member of. Happy to be proven wrong though. But it's a small point as equal provision of gender-specific shelters would solve the issue anyway (apart from with the aforementioned same-sex abuse cases).

It's sexist, but whatever. Victims of domestic abuse have specific needs, and they seem to feel much safer when you don't have reminders around of the person that abused them.

Isn't that why female-only shelters were set up? Because that's what the female victims wanted?

This isn't going to change anytime soon, so instead of pushing for gender-inclusive shelters, we have to push for more men-only shelters instead. Doing it your way would probably get us nowhere (but maybe I'm wrong).

 

[Lord of Elves]

Traditional masculinity is class conflict.

The expectations of traditional masculinity are designed and perpetuated to make sure men continue to perform the socioeconomic roles that we want them to perform. Gender roles, when you look at them from a very broad, long-term perspective, are little more than economic and social actions. Men are tasked with being instigators and active participants in both, and are supposed to provide economic and social boons to their dependents, who are considered generally speaking to be women and children. In pre-industrial societies, this was a great, easy, obvious way to divide labor. We can talk about how different cultures interpreted gender roles differently based on their economic and environmental circumstances all day, which should be evidence enough that gender roles are not static and not ordained by god but are instead a reaction to specific conditions.

In a post-industrial context, the forces acting on people now are rendering gender roles obsolete. Technological conveniences being what they are, the physical strength of men that once made them better workers and better fighters than women is now a null point, as the working and fighting that needs to be done can now not only be performed by machines but also by men and women with the assistance of prosthetics et alia.

Before, we could talk of maintaining gender roles as part of ensuring the continuation and health of our society. We wouldn't have invented these categories for people - and the actions and attitudes that come along with them - if they didn't serve a purpose. But they don't serve a purpose anymore, so why preserve them?

Oppressive purposes only, gents.

 

[Narz]

No one is going to go to a man and complain about how he dresses.

Dunno where you grew up, I got plenty of negative attention growing up from dressing in socially unacceptable ways. Ironically now big ugly glasses and dressing like a dork are cool among hipsters. I simply didn't have a choice since my mom purchased my clothes.

Women have more acceptable options than men in most cultures. Obviously not in many Muslim countries of course.

 

[civman110]

Everything we are talking about in OT is opinions. Don't act as if discussion stops there.

(By the way, that you're content to shrug and essentially say "let's agree to disagree" is already a product of your privilege.)

Everything is not opinion. Some things talked about (on other topics) can be verifiable facts, however this is a topic that mainly has to do with people's opinions, or what they feel about particular things and it varies widely per person. This is why you're seeing such bizarre arguments at places like Yale among liberals.

Because I have a different opinion than you doesn't in any way mean it's a product of privilege. The fact that you would say such a thing when you know hardly anything about me, or what my life has been like only demonstrates your own biases and ignorance.

 

[Narz]

Lord of elves, gender roles existed far before modern societies, probably predating human beings even.

I don't think there is anything wrong with healthy gender roles as long as people have a choice to accept or reject them.

As a man I feel the need to take care of my body so I can protect myself & loved ones. If I was for instance, too weak to lift up a woman & carry her up stairs either on an emergency or to woo her I wouldnt feel very manly.

Private general roles can be good and empowering as long as you don't demean others and hold them to your standards.

 

[Lord of Elves]

Lord of elves, gender roles existed far before modern societies, probably predating human beings even.

I don't think there is anything wrong with healthy gender roles as long as people have a choice to accept or reject them.

As a man I feel the need to take care of my body so I can protect myself & loved ones. If I was for instance, too weak to lift up a woman & carry her up stairs either on an emergency or to woo her I wouldnt feel very manly.

Private general roles can be good and empowering as long as you don't demean others and hold them to your standards.

Gender =/= sex

but this is where the conversation breaks down, because with "men's issues" you're either coming to the table convinced that the problem is that men haven't evolved with society or convinced that the problem is that being men the same way we've always been isn't getting the same results it used to.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

1) Male privilege had legal consequences in the past. This is where I am starting from. In the past, a woman could not be raped by her husband according to the law, she needed her husband's permission to conduct business etc.

I believe the "a woman could not be raped by her husband" claim is one of those urban myths. I may be wrong on this, I have hardly researched it extensively, but I believe it was born out of the fact that "marital rape" is a (relatively) recent addition to the statute books, but this does not mean that the existing crime of "rape" didn't already cover this. It would be like saying that, before hate crimes existed, it was legal to stab black men in the neck.

But anyway, although the men (or should I say husbands, as that is what we're really talking about) had certain privileges over their wives, they also had certain responsibilities and that the wives did not, and they had additional privileges of their own. For example, while the man may well have been the one with legal power over the finances, he was legally required to use this power fairly and to keep his wife and children to some acceptable standard. I don't remember the name of the offence now, but it was a crime to spend all the money on himself. He would also be held legally responsible for any debts racked up by his wife, even if they were without his knowledge, up to and including jail time. But in any case this was all tied to the institution of marriage, not strictly a men-vs-women issue. Single women retained all those same rights and responsibilities for themselves.

I totally agree that there were very rigid and unfair gender roles at the time, and I'm glad these things are (for the most part) gone now and would have no desire to see them return. But I do not agree that it was ever as simple as "men get all the good stuff, women get all the bad stuff". It was a mixture of pros and cons for both sexes.

2) To justify these legal consequences, certain thought processes about men and women were adopted by society as a whole. Thus came the idea that women were weaker than men, physically and emotionally, thus came the idea that women aren't driven by sexual need, thus comes the idea that women are passive creatures etc.

Yep, as above, I agree with this and am glad it's no longer the case.

3)The feminist movement has challenged and knocked down these legal barriers by and large. They have also challenged how society views women.

They are not the sole force responsible for such changes, and they've done a lot of other questionable stuff as well. As for the last sentence... too right they have.

4) So traces of male privilege still exist in the left over thought processes of those times, but they are on their way out, and the actual tangible consequences of those beliefs is hard to measure.

I would agree that traces of the gender roles and expectations still exist, but as before I do not agree that they were ever anything as simple as male privilege. Nor do I agree that they still exist as anything other than a negligible background noise that can mostly be ignored. For example, if I wanted to become a nurse or a hairdresser or ballerina (or whatever the male equivalent) then I imagine I would face exactly the same societal pressures than women who want to become bricklayers or car mechanics face, but that it would essentially amount to nothing more than a few sniggers behind the back or some such equivalent, rather than the whole system being against me, and it would only take a less than averagely strong character to weather those storms.

5) Male privilege must not be conflated with other more potent privileges.By that I mean, don't assume because a person is male they are as privileged as a rich women. That rich women is more privileged than that man any day, because the law does favor rich people, and trying to dismantle the privilege of the wealthy is something I believe can't be done, and the attitudes that empower the rich are stubbornly embedded into society (ie the poor deserve their poverty).

No argument there.

 

[Narz]

Leoreth, I never said gender roles cannot or should not be changed, nor that they were not influenced by society. That's pretty obvious, from what I've heard for instance Americans are much less comfortable with physical touch among men, although this may be changing (or maybe I'm simply changing to hanging out with dude's who aren't freaked out by a hug).

There's a lot toxicity tied up in both male & female gender roles like you said, and as LoE mentioned much of it may be related to being good little workers and consumers for society. But we can't get away from gender roles altogether, nor would we want to. I like being masculine, I like when women like being feminine. And I respect anyone's right to define for themselves what that means without risking abuse.

 

[Samson]

An issue that I feel is a mens rights issue as well as a womens rights issue is the unequal right to parenting leave. If a man and a woman are both employed and have a child in the UK, the man is entitled to between 2 weeks and 3 months time off, with some pay and their job held for them. The woman is entitled to between 3 and 6 months.

If only one of them is employed, then if it is the man he is entitled to 2 weeks off, if it is the woman then she is entitled to 6 months. Note here that not employed includes both unemployed and self employed.

I think this is a mens rights issue as men are effectively excluded from playing a primary role in childcare at the crucial early stage of their childs life. I think it is a womens rights issue as it perpetrates the idea that childrearing is womans work, and it makes it harder to employ women of childbearing age, particularly in roles where taking many months off if a real problem. These are the roles where women are underreprasented and are high status / highly paid. It is a family issue particularly for families where the woman earns more than the man.

I believe the "a woman could not be raped by her husband" claim is one of those urban myths. I may be wrong on this, I have hardly researched it extensively, but I believe it was born out of the fact that "marital rape" is a (relatively) recent addition to the statute books, but this does not mean that the existing crime of "rape" didn't already cover this. It would be like saying that, before hate crimes existed, it was legal to stab black men in the neck.

In the UK it was. It was accepted in law that getting married was consent for ever, so you could not have non-consentual sex with your spouse.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Isn't that why female-only shelters were set up? Because that's what the female victims wanted?

I don't know. That's my point, I've only ever heard this claim made by supporters of female shelters or the people who run them, I've never heard it come from victims themselves (or some statistics about them).

Also, if you listen to Erin Pizzey, it's very much not the picture she paints, and as the founder of the first women's shelter and a prime mover in the whole movement in the early 70s I have no reason to doubt what she says.