The Rights of Men

[madviking]

Not at all. It's more "stop pretending minor inconveniences are major problems". Also, I don't believe anyone DOES have the power to eradicate such low-level stuff from society, or at least not without taking some horrendously draconian actions which can't be good. I believe individuals have the power to better their own lives though, and one step they could take is to stop pretending minor inconveniences are major problems and to get on with their lives.

If I can be quite honest, I don't trust you to make value judgments ("minor" and the like) of the "inconveniences" that women face. What Owen brought it is a very legitimate concern that women face. Ignoring it may bring bliss, but the problem will still there unless women (and society at large) do something about it.

Nothing personal, you just don't strike me as an ear-on-the-ground guy with regards to women's issues.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I'm sure your sister appreciates being used as evidence. Why not listen to actual women in this thread? This whole discussion is about experiences you refuse to acknowledge, which means actual first hand experiences are very relevant to the discussion. Certainly more so than the experiences of men who have female acquaintances or just generally know what it's like to be a woman.

So warpus can use his sister as evidence but I can't? The only reason I did it was to point out the irrelevance of anecdotal evidence because we can all pull a "well actually I know a woman who says this..." story out of our pockets to back up what we're saying.

And if you're telling me to "listen and beleive" then why am I not at liberty to choose what individual women to listen to and believe, rather than the ones you tell me to listen to? They don't all have the same opinions you know, and any 2 or 3 plucked at random can't be considered a representative sample in any event.

How often do you want to want to shift the goal posts in this thread? First it's made up, then it's a minority problem, then it's only an irrelevant concern.

When did I say it was made up? And how are "minority problem" and "irrelevant concern" mutually exclusive? And in fact when did I say it was a minority problem for that matter?

 

[Manfred Belheim]

As an aside, surely there must be some irony, given how often MRAs are accused of invading female discussions, that this thread has been entirely taken over by discussion of feminist issues.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

If I can be quite honest, I don't trust you to make value judgments ("minor" and the like) of the "inconveniences" that women face. What Owen brought it is a very legitimate concern that women face. Ignoring it may bring bliss, but the problem will still there unless women (and society at large) do something about it.

Nothing personal, you just don't strike me as an ear-on-the-ground guy with regards to women's issues.

How is that not personal?

 

[madviking]

How is that not personal?

You're not dumb or anything, but, judging from your posts, I just feel you lack a deep understanding of women's points of view and feminism in general.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Why is it a minor inconvenience? I'm not going to dress this up in any other way; you're a man telling women to basically "deal with it and get on" with any sexism they deal.

Can you give me an explanation as to exactly how the society-wide opinion (and let's just accept that it is society-wide for the sake of argument) that women who sleep around with lots of men are sluts causes significantly large problems for a significantly large number of women, to the extent that we need to take society-wide action to combat this? If you can do so in a way that doesn't resort to a hypothetical case of a woman who has a reputation for sleeping around, who THEN gets raped, and who THEN ends up in a courtroom with a bigoted judge, bigoted defence lawyer, bigoted jury and incompetent prosecution lawyer then that would be even better.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

You're not dumb or anything, but, judging from your posts, I just feel you lack a deep understanding of women's points of view and feminism in general.

Well that's still quite clearly personal.

I also think it's pretty much a cop out argument, and one I've seen many times, to say "well you don't agree with me, and you're not a woman, therefore you can't possibly understand women's issues and I don't have to engage with you". If absolutely every woman, or the vast majority of them, held the opposing view to me on the matter then I'd probably have to accept that and deal with it, but we know that isn't the case. Only a minority of women self-identify as feminists and there's no shortage of women who also do not buy into this mindset. You can't ignore their existence. It's also basically saying I have no ability to use empathy or rational thought of my own and must simply believe what I'm told. This might make sense if, for example, only women were capable of seeing ultraviolet light and I need to just listen to them and believe what they say it's like because I have no experience myself, but telling me I can't even begin to imagine what it's like to be called names and judged harshly? Come on.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I don't want to be accused of running scared or whatever, but I really don't want to continue discussing this topic for another 2 or 3 pages. It's pretty much derailing the thread (not that it ever got going) and I don't think there's much point in me essentially reiterating myself over and over again.

 

[madviking]

Well that's still quite clearly personal.

You wouldn't want to trust someone without any engineering background to talk engineering. You wouldn't want to trust someone without a philosophy background to give novel, new arguments. This is the same.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

You wouldn't want to trust someone without any engineering background to talk engineering. You wouldn't want to trust someone without a philosophy background to give novel, new arguments. This is the same.

Disagree. And definitely disagree with the philosophy statement. This isn't some arcane knowledge that only a select few initiates have access to, we're talking about the common every day attitudes across all of society.

Anyway, as I say, the day all women speak with a united voice is the day I might consider that to be true.

But let's start another thread if there's really any need to keep discussing this, which there wouldn't appear to be if you have no interest in what I'm saying anyway.

 

[madviking]

Philosophy is an academic field for a reason...

And why another thread? Feminism is a part of philosophy. And everything I've thread about "the rights of men" seems to be a reaction from feminism. So everything so far has been fair game.

 

[bhavv]

So a person without a film and tv degree cannot talk about films or tv?

 

[madviking]

So a person without a film and tv degree cannot talk about films or tv?

Who said anything about a degree?

 

[Narz]

This is some serious naivety, women who sleep around get a much more negative reaction than their male counterparts.

It's unfortunate, I do my part to never shame a woman for having sex, shoot I've shared girls with my friend before. Slut shaming is insecurity (whether the judge is male or female).

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Philosophy is an academic field for a reason...

And why another thread? Feminism is a part of philosophy. And everything I've thread about "the rights of men" seems to be a reaction from feminism. So everything so far has been fair game.

I meant another thread for continuing to discuss this issue, not philosophy.

But to go back, "if you disagree with feminism then it's because you're uneducated about feminism" is a terrible argument because you're putting yourself in an unfalsifiable, bullet-proof position. And that's the very best I could expect as a woman disagreeing with feminism. As a man all I will get is "well you're a man so you CAN'T understand this because you have no lived experience, so just believe what I tell you (and ignore those other women who are just uneducated)". That would be like dismissing my atheism because I have no lived experience as a Christian.

 

[Narz]

Yeah, that "you're not x so you don't understand x" is a terrible argument, especially coming from people who themselves are not x, or double-x in this case.

 

[warpus]

And everything I've thread about "the rights of men" seems to be a reaction from feminism.

Then you're either reading selectively or not reading much about it at all.

Yeah, that "you're not x so you don't understand x" is a terrible argument, especially coming from people who themselves are not x, or double-x in this case.

Come on man, get off it, if you've never starred in a movie, you obviously can't discuss movies, as you lack the proper context to have a valid opinion.

 

[Narz]

Come on man, get off it, if you've never starred in a movie, you obviously can't discuss movies, as you lack the proper context to have a valid opinion.

I barely understand myself, for me to claim to have knowledge of all straight white males would be ridiculous. You know your own experience. I've spent more time getting to know women than men so I'd reckon my understanding of my fellow males might even be less.

 

[madviking]

Yeah, that "you're not x so you don't understand x" is a terrible argument, especially coming from people who themselves are not x, or double-x in this case.

Forgive me trying to hold people to a high standard when discussing something as rigorous as philosophy. It's not like this isn't a red diamond thread or anything.

Then you're either reading selectively or not reading much about it at all.

Well, probably the latter because I haven't seen anything in academia about the "men's rights movement".

I meant another thread for continuing to discuss this issue, not philosophy.

But to go back, "if you disagree with feminism then it's because you're uneducated about feminism" is a terrible argument because you're putting yourself in an unfalsifiable, bullet-proof position. And that's the very best I could expect as a woman disagreeing with feminism. As a man all I will get is "well you're a man so you CAN'T understand this because you have no lived experience, so just believe what I tell you (and ignore those other women who are just uneducated)". That would be like dismissing my atheism because I have no lived experience as a Christian.

I never said it was about disagreeing with your value judgments, it's just I'm skeptical of the value judgments you made. It could very well be those value judgments are correct, it's just I'll reserve judgment on them for reasons hitherto mentioned or if someone with a firm grasp on the subject can explain why those value judgments are correct. Hence, I'm not in a bullet-proof position at all; someone could (and probably should) explain why I'm wrong. And the objection I'm making isn't terrible at all. Based on the amount of bad and/or lazy philosophy that exists, especially on feminism, it's just I remain skeptical of big, important value judgments (i.e. you saying "minor inconveniences"), which is an entirely reasonable position, especially considering what's the amount of evidence contrary to that point.

 

[warpus]

Who told you to limit your reading material to academia?