The Rights of Men

[Lord of Elves]

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.

Look, I think anyone who seriously proposes that we "abolish" gender roles does not in any way shape or form envision a future in which we are all unisex eunuchlings. The vast majority of people would not change their behavior in any way. We are talking about building a social environment where people who express their masculinity, femininity, whatever in a way that is unconventional are not marginalized or repressed.

We very clearly do not live in that environment now.

 

[Narz]

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.

I never spoke on gender being sex so no comment there.

As for men not evolving with society I don't really follow (especially considering most official change is voted into existence by mostly men, for better or worse). We are all evolving together, albeit at different rates. There is mass confusion about everyone as to where they fit into this world, what is expected of them and how to proceed.

 

[Narz]

We are talking about building a social environment where people who express their masculinity, femininity, whatever in a way that is unconventional are not marginalized or repressed.

We very clearly do not live in that environment now.

No argument here.

 

[Lord of Elves]

I never spoke on gender being sex so no comment there.

As for men not evolving with society I don't really follow (especially considering most official change is voted into existence by mostly men, for better or worse). We are all evolving together, albeit at different rates. There is mass confusion about everyone as to where they fit into this world, what is expected of them and how to proceed.

When you said gender roles predated history and mankind I took it to mean organisms behaving differently based on sex, but now I'm not sure what you mean. Obviously I disagree with you that gender roles predate history - I take the view that without the need to perform certain tasks for the group, distinct gender roles would never have existed. Now, as we no longer need male and female humans to do different things, we should stop expecting them to act differently because of their maleness or femaleness.

The reason there is any confusion at all about people's roles in society is because we are using an obsolete framework for human behavior. The standards we have applied for centuries, even millennia, have no rhyme or reason anymore. They are a bum deal, and the people who want the wider society to continue subscribing to traditional notions of gender, sex and sexuality have a very malignant agenda, I promise you.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Look, I think anyone who seriously proposes that we "abolish" gender roles does not in any way shape or form envision a future in which we are all unisex eunuchlings. The vast majority of people would not change their behavior in any way. We are talking about building a social environment where people who express their masculinity, femininity, whatever in a way that is unconventional are not marginalized or repressed.

We very clearly do not live in that environment now.

Well God, we don't live very far from it do we? Only in the sort of idealist world that anarchists dream of, where everybody suddenly becomes a nice person interested only in altruism and kindness, are things going to improve much further, and that's never going to happen.

 

[jackelgull]

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.

The views which contributed to rape laws not being applicable in marriage can be traced, at least partially, to 17th century English common law, which was exported to the British American colonies. The 17th-century English jurist, Sir Matthew Hale, stated the position of the common law in The History of the Pleas of the Crown (1736) that a husband cannot be guilty of the rape of his wife because the wife "hath given up herself in this kind to her husband, which she cannot retract". The principle, no record of which is found earlier than Hale's view, would continue to be accepted as a statement of the law in England and Wales until it was overturned by the House of Lords in the case of R. v. R in 1991,[1] where it was described as an anachronistic and offensive legal fiction.

Seems the woman cannot be legally raped by her husband is something we inherited from the Brits.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Is that not in the same league as the "it's legal to shoot a Welshman with a crossbow within the city walls of Chester after midnight" though? As in, the law in name only?

 

[jackelgull]

Is that not in the same league as the "it's legal to shoot a Welshman with a crossbow within the city walls of Chester after midnight" though? As in, the law in name only?

I'm not sure when it ceased to become a law that was enforced and taken seriously in America. I just know that it was a thing in America.

 

[civman110]

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.

That's totally your opinion.

At least recognize what is and isn't an opinion, otherwise there is no point in even beginning a discussion. You can have an opinion for anything, but that doesn't make what your saying true.

 

[Lord of Elves]

Well God, we don't live very far from it do we? Only in the sort of idealist world that anarchists dream of, where everybody suddenly becomes a nice person interested only in altruism and kindness, are things going to improve much further, and that's never going to happen.

I mean, look.

I'm not an anarchist, and I'm not proposing anarchism. I'm saying we need to affect this change in our social mores, and it's happening right now. Gradually. I'm saying that it's a change that has to occur not just for the benefit of mankind but for the basic moral functioning of the species. We should stop being terrible people to people who don't express gender along the lines of the traditional framework. The violence and misery is just unnecessary and not evolutionarily advantageous.

I'm not saying people are going to change their minds overnight. If anything, I'm saying we should do something Not Nice to the people who won't.

 

[Borachio]

Women who were abused by men might not feel comfortable in a shelter where men are present.

They might not.

They might, on the other hand, feel comforted (or reassured in some ill-defined way) that some men can be victims of abuse just as much as they can.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I'm not sure when it ceased to become a law that was enforced and taken seriously in America. I just know that it was a thing in America.

From (presumably) the same page you were looking at:

Hale's statement in History of the Pleas of the Crown was not supported by any judicial authority but was believed to be a logical consequence of the laws of marriage and rape as understood at the time. Marriage gave conjugal rights to a spouse, and marriage could not be revoked except by private Act of Parliament—it therefore seemed to follow that a spouse could not legally revoke consent to sexual intercourse, and if there was consent there was no rape.

The principle was repeated in East's Treatise of the Pleas of the Crown in 1803 and in Archbold’s Pleading and Evidence in Criminal Cases in 1822, but it was not until R v Clarence[2] that the question of the exemption first arose in an English courtroom. Clarence was determined on a different point, and there was no clear agreement between the nine judges regarding the status of the rule.

Obviously this is UK-specific. But note also that it is not gender-specific. Exactly the same "right to sex" applied to women as well as men. So by assuming that in practice it was always going to be the man forcing himself on the woman, are you not guilty of the very thing you were talking about earlier (assuming women are passive and uninterested in sex)?

But I believe that all this is an aside anyway. I'm certainly not going to deny that things were massively unfair in the past in this respect, but I don't think it has much relevance to current issues.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I mean, look.

I'm not an anarchist, and I'm not proposing anarchism. I'm saying we need to affect this change in our social mores, and it's happening right now. Gradually. I'm saying that it's a change that has to occur not just for the benefit of mankind but for the basic moral functioning of the species. We should stop being terrible people to people who don't express gender along the lines of the traditional framework. The violence and misery is just unnecessary and not evolutionarily advantageous.

I'm not saying people are going to change their minds overnight. If anything, I'm saying we should do something Not Nice to the people who won't.

But it's a battle that is essentially won. People can express non-standard gender identity. Not only does the establishment allow this, but there are now laws that specifically protect people from mistreatment. It is largely socially unacceptable to bully or mistreat such people as well. There are still problems when faced with bigoted individuals or small groups, up to and including violence, but good luck stamping that out. It's just an inevitable consequence of the herd mentality and wish to conform that is present in a social species, coupled with the nastier side of human nature which is probably always going to be there. I mean, even "normal" people face violence, unprovoked attacks, bullying, being murdered etc. No-one's ever managed to stamp this out. Some people just aren't nice.

And I really can't agree with that last sentence which basically sounds like a warning of a terrorist atrocity or something.

 

[Lord of Elves]

But it's a battle that is essentially won. People can express non-standard gender identity. Not only does the establishment allow this, but there are now laws that specifically protect people from mistreatment. It is largely socially unacceptable to bully or mistreat such people as well. There are still problems when faced with bigoted individuals or small groups, up to and including violence, but good luck stamping that out. It's just an inevitable consequence of the herd mentality and wish to conform that is present in a social species, coupled with the nastier side of human nature which is probably always going to be there. I mean, even "normal" people face violence, unprovoked attacks, bullying, being murdered etc. No-one's ever managed to stamp this out. Some people just aren't nice.

And I really can't agree with that last sentence which basically sounds like a warning of a terrorist atrocity or something.

The battle isn't won and won't be won until "non-traditional gender" is a normative part of the culture. This will happen, not because it's some abstract social good that I or anyone else in an ivory tower decided needed to be imposed on people, but because it's a natural consequence of human behavior and the environmental restrictions on it, or in our case, the lack thereof.

This is the direction our society is going in, and these new technologies and new personal liberties are going to allow a flowering of culture and art that will be unprecedented in our civilization's history.

Or it will be if we can manage to decouple our political society from private interests who have no stake in the betterment of the human condition or the "human race." I'm not proposing any kind of "terrorist atrocity." We - the people committed to social change and cultural revolution - are being threatened with violence both by state and non-state actors. We shouldn't expect that all people will be convinced just by nice words alone.

 

[civman110]

The battle isn't won and won't be won until "non-traditional gender" is a normative part of the culture.

That's never going to happen because it's not normal. Men and women evolved to behave and think specific ways. I don't have a problem with people that do not fit into those general roles, but to think that you are going to normalize what is an outlier in society is naive.

 

[useless]

That's never going to happen because it's not normal. Men and women evolved to behave have think specific ways.

[Citation Needed]

Also, define "normal", a 100+ years ago it was normal for women not to vote or even work, 100+ years ago things were very different, normal is relative and isn't static.

 

[warpus]

They might not.

They might, on the other hand, feel comforted (or reassured in some ill-defined way) that some men can be victims of abuse just as much as they can.

That's true, but I think it would be a huge uphill fight to make all female-only abuse centres to open up to men. It should be much easier to open new centres designed to be for men and for men only. I mean, it seems to be a difficult proposition, as virtually no such centres seem to exist.. but..

 

[civman110]

[Citation Needed]

Also, define "normal", a 100+ years ago it was normal for women not to vote or even work, 100+ years ago things were very different, normal is relative and isn't static.

There is no citation needed if you understand the most basics of evolution and biology. Men and women would physically be identical and think in the same ways if they were in fact the same, however clearly they evolved to be different and serve different biological purposes. There is an immense amount of scientific data that supports this.

Normal as in men and women - are two different genders with distinct physical and mental differences. It's been scientifically proven that male and female brains operate fundamentally differently, and the physical differences are self-evident.

Whatever happened 100+ years ago is really irrelevant. Men and women are biologically the same now as they were then.

 

[useless]

You made a claim that "Men and women evolved to behave and think in specific ways." and now im asking you to back that up and if there is "an immense amount of scientific data that supports this" cite it.

 

[civman110]

You made a claim that "Men and women evolved to behave and think in specific ways." and now im asking you to back that up and if there is "an immense amount of scientific data that supports this" cite it.

Do you think men and women are physically the same and think the same?

Every human being out there would tell you they aren't. If you really want to get technical the left and right hemispheres of men's and women's brains have been proven to function differently and that has a lot to do with how people experience emotion and feelings - which is an obvious difference that everyone already knows about, so I don't see how the specific details of that is going to add anything to this discussion.