When did feminism go completely crazy?

[Lohrenswald]

Seven pages of responses in less than 20 hours?

<backs away slowly>

You asked for it?

 

[Farm Boy]

White and straight has it pretty simple. From a convenience/safety/power standpoint, it's mostly ever been, and still is, a clear win. Gender, now that's more complicated(even if the preponderance is clear). Though you do get a large amount of poor white people that very much hate overt and intentional racial bias in job/university selection. It's for the better heeled whites to sneer at the backwards racists that have so squandered the heritage of their skin enough to be directly disadvantaged by things like affirmative action.

 

[cardgame]

When men try to crowbar their own issues into discussions of women's issues, sure, but what do you expect? If men want to discuss men's issues, they need to find their own spaces and start their own discussions. As much as I understand the desire to find a sympathetic female ear, we can't expect women to hold our hand's through this stuff.

They won't let men do that, either. As I already posted.

Also, if feminists are claiming to want equality for both genders they will allow men's issues to be brought up. If they only want it for one gender, they won't. That seems pretty obvious to me.

The general dislike of men showing weakness is one of the reasons men trying to bring attention to men&#8217;s issues often receive scorn (and sometimes hateful mocking) from both traditionalists and progressives. Both sides of society are still stuck with the &#8220;men should suck it up and stop complaining&#8221; attitude (even though &#8220;complaining&#8221;, bringing attention to these as societal problems, is necessary to fix them).

I thought feminism was against gender roles? But not for men. Nah.

 

[Phrossack]

They won't let men do that, either. As I already posted.

Also, if feminists are claiming to want equality for both genders they will allow men's issues to be brought up. If they only want it for one gender, they won't. That seems pretty simple to me.



I thought feminism was against gender roles? But not for men. Nah.

While your post is a breath of fresh air, you're never going to change their minds. All discussions involving feminism, men's issues, and related topics consist of either a bunch of people agreeing with each other and patting each other on the back, whichever their side is, or bitter, futile bickering. This is the latter.

 

[trader/warrior]

It's understandable that men who want to talk about gender issues should try to address feminists, because they seem broadly sympathetic, while a lot of men would just point and laugh. But that's not a justification for intruding into feminist spaces. If men want to engage seriously with gender issues, they have to create their own spaces and start their own discussions rather than piggy-backing on the work of women.

Thing is, they are the same issues. Aren't they? Just looking at the link Cardgame posted, 90% of them could be answered with the parodical "Thats all part of the patriarchy and macho culture, man!", because they do in fact fit in to that dynamic however different connotations they have in many peoples eyes.

The idea that women should mainly care about womens issues and men mainly mens issues just seems abhorrent to me. Especially when they are the same issues caused by the same problem! Shouldn't we all just care about gender issues, issues of equality, rights and so on and so forth? There's a lot of unecessary divisiveness whenever these things come up I think.

 

[sophie]

Who is "they"? If you talk to Women's Studies Academics they'll be happy to talk to you about the other side of the patriarchy coin. It's just...you know. It's women's studies. Not exactly germane.

I'd agree with...was it BvBPL or was it Senethro re: academics talking about things in a very specific context, and then people from outside reading their publications without that correct context and then extrapolating incorrectly. There're also the people who read like half an article on rape culture and suddenly decide they're experts now and those are the people whose opinions most often get picked up for "SEE FEMINISTS ARE DUMB" spiels. Here's a good example:

https://medium.com/@directordanic/the-problem-with-false-feminism-7c0bbc7252ef

 

[Narz]

Then I see threads like this, and remember what happens when you attempt to talk to straight guys about gender issues.

Sterotyping based on gender & sexual orientation is good stuff!

Because, you know, straight white males can't have an informed opinions. Ugh with our dicks & our love of vagina & our pale, pale skin. Just the thought of it sickens me.

What issues do men have that feminism doesn't consider?

Watch Warpus's video (by a woman).

There is a few, but it mostly consists of men being terrible to other men, and I don't think we should expect women to concern themselves over-much with that stuff.

Kind of like how white people shouldn't worry about black on black violence?

Warpus covered some of the issues, I noticed his vid was totally ignored.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/11/men-women-prison-sentence-length-gender-gap_n_1874742.html

(funny how even this is blamed on 'the patriarchy' (the quality of intelligence of those who believe in 'the patriarchy' seems about on par with those who believe in 'the illuminati')

More than you probably even want to read.

I'll grant that feminism does list many of those issues in its to-do list, but simultaneously many are ignored.

For example, an excerpt:

Examples/evidence: The first example comes from Simon Fraser University near Vancouver, where the women’s centre opposed efforts to create a comparable men’s centre (which was to be given the same funding). The idea behind the men’s centre was to address men’s issues like suicide, alcoholism, drug abuse, and negative stereotypes, but the women’s centre opposed it by insisting that “the men’s centre is everywhere else” (despite the fact that those men’s issues certainly aren’t being addressed “everywhere else”). Instead they offered a rather spiteful alternative [1]:

The website lists support for the idea of a “male allies project” that would “bring self-identified men together to talk about masculinity and its harmful effects.” Masculinity, it says, “denigrates women by making them into sexual objects, is homophobic, encourages violence, and discourages emotional expression.”


---

I don't know what you can call misandry if not those last two sentences.

More examples exist in the same vein.

Spoiler :

The third example comes from Ryerson University, which is also in Toronto. Three students (one man and two women) decided to start a club dedicated to men’s issues. They were blocked by the Ryerson Students’ Union, which associated the men’s issues club with supposed “anti-women’s rights groups” and called the idea that it’s even possible to be sexist against men an “oppressive concept” [4]:

There’s been a lot of work across campuses not only in Ontario but also across the country that have been working sort of [as] anti-women’s rights groups. We want to acknowledge that the additions that we added here are regarding the ideas of misandry and reverse-sexism, both of which are oppressive concepts that aim to delegitimize the equity work that women’s movements work to do.

A fourth example comes from an event at the University of Ottawa [5].

Janice Fiamengo, who teaches in the English literature department, tried to give a public lecture on men’s issues, equality and rape culture at the university on March 28. But as shown in an hour-long YouTube video, she was repeatedly interrupted by a group of about 30 students shouting and blasting horns.

Representatives from the Canadian Association for Equality (CAFE), which organized the talk, tried to quell the crowd, but they eventually called security. The talk was moved to another room, but somebody pulled the fire alarm, which effectively shut it down.

Dude, men don't have feelings & certainly don't have to talk about them. I don't know what you're complaining about, you have 'white privilege'™. Whenever I'm feeling down I simply go to the ATM and show them my privilege card & then give me money. Then I go out for drinks & show my male privilege card & get sex. Men who are depressed, feel like outsiders & losers need only remember that society loves & honors them just for being them.

I thought feminism was against gender roles? But not for men. Nah.

If you don't like it you can always become a tranny.

 

[Arwon]

I just did a quick google of the Canadian universities Cardgame posed about, seems to be an organised effort by somebody called "Canadians for Equality". Looks like boiler plate MRA stuff and is affiliated with A Voice For Men which is pretty much a hate group/mouthpiece for noted hateful lunatic Paul Elam (the vocabulary of this group legit uses words like "white knight" and "mangina").

Naturally, the justifications given for denying these groups (as Traitorfish says, student politics is very hard to disentangle) is stuff like blaming rape victims for their rape, claiming there's a false rape epidemic and maybe some death and rape threats and the eventual thing that went ahead was indeed seemingly a full-on MRA group and not a "men's issues discussion".

Well done to cardgame for giving the full picture I guess.

 

[Narz]

There're also the people who read like half an article... and suddenly decide they're experts now

Welcome to the Internet. I do hope you enjoy your stay.

 

[cardgame]

I just did a quick google of the Canadian universities Cardgame posed about, seems to be an organised effort by somebody called "Canadians for Equality". Looks like boiler plate MRA stuff and is affiliated with A Voice For Men which is pretty much a hate group/mouthpiece for noted hateful lunatic Paul Elam.

Naturally, the justifications given for denying these groups (as Traitofrfish says, student politics is very hard to disentangle) is stuff like blaming rape victims for their rape, claiming there's a false rape epidemic and maybe some death and rape threats and the eventual thing that went ahead was indeed seemingly a full-on MRA group and not a "men's issues discussion".

Well done to cardgame for giving the full picture I guess.

Well done to Arwon for not giving the full picture I guess.

Is CAFE associated with other organizations?

CAFE is an independent organization and has no formal affiliation or association with any other organization. If other groups claim to undertake activities to support our efforts that does not mean that CAFE has approved, endorsed, sponsored or coordinated those activities.

 

[Katie Boundary]

You asked for it?

Yea but I didn't ask for so much of it so quickly

White and straight has it pretty simple. From a convenience/safety/power standpoint, it's mostly ever been, and still is, a clear win. Gender, now that's more complicated(even if the preponderance is clear).

It's a lot more complicated than that because of how all these things interfere with each other. Bisexual obviously tops both gay and straight, while Asians are at the top of the race privilege totem pole. Assuming that the law treats everyone equally, straight females and gay males generally have it easier than lesbians and straight males, but this varies hugely from one geographic location to another (San Francisco, California will have a different pecking order than Little Rock, Arkansas). There's also crap like intelligence stratification. While males and females have the same average intelligence, females have a narrower intelligence bell curve than males, and males are more likely to be cognitively lopsided in favor of math and spatial stuff at the expense of other types of intelligence, so it's insanely difficult for nerdy guys to find single girls who share their interests.

Then I go out for drinks & show my male privilege card & get sex.

This is exactly what being a lesbian is like.

 

[Arwon]

Well done to Arwon for not giving the full picture I guess.

Case closed!

 

[BvBPL]

Shouldn't we all just care about gender issues, issues of equality, rights and so on and so forth?

I wouldn't contest the divisiveness you brought up, but in answer to the question above: no. Or no and yes.

Which is to say that people should care about a lot of different issues, they are under no obligation to present and discuss all of those issues.

While I'd like people to be concerned about a large number of rights issues, it is not expected to discuss a broad range of issues at once. For example, when I talk about issues related to mental illness I am not obliged to also talk simultaneously about issues related to physical disabilities. Few people complain about Easter Seals raising autism awareness and not, say, dietary health. No one demands equal time on the news for Zapatistas opposite Syrian revolutionaries. You don't need to address prenatal care before talking about how age discrimination affects the contemporary older worker.

Yet somehow some people expect conversations about women's issues to also discuss men's issues.

 

[Farm Boy]

Katie, you're mixing the (mostly) straightforward categories with thier counterpoints and the complicated category, then saying the straightforward category is complicated. Which is true since nothing exists in a vacuum, but is already a point I'll happily acknowledge!

 

[cardgame]

I wouldn't contest the divisiveness you brought up, but in answer to the question above: no. Or no and yes.

Which is to say that people should care about a lot of different issues, they are under no obligation to present and discuss all of those issues.

While I'd like people to be concerned about a large number of rights issues, it is not expected to discuss a broad range of issues at once. For example, when I talk about issues related to mental illness I am not obliged to also talk simultaneously about issues related to physical disabilities. Few people complain about Easter Seals raising autism awareness and not, say, dietary health. No one demands equal time on the news for Zapatistas opposite Syrian revolutionaries. You don't need to address prenatal care before talking about how age discrimination affects the contemporary older worker.

Yet somehow some people expect conversations about women's issues to also discuss men's issues.

They are often the opposite sides of the same coin, as has been mentioned previously.

Talking about societal issues without input from half of society doesn't seem like a good way to go about things, either.

One of the key members of CAFE, Adam McPhee, has some relevant writing regarding this.



...

&#8220;It takes balls to talk about the things that frighten us. Women do it all the time, because the things that frighten them are, frankly, men. Now how about if men take a deep breath and listen for a moment to their wives and daughters and mothers and aunts and girlfriends, who are telling them that being angry is OK, but acting it out with hatred against half the population of the world is not. It is old news, pathetic and soul destroying.

Let the talking begin.&#8221;

As is the problem with many feminists, Ms. Decker feels men shouldn&#8217;t be having this conversation. She feels they should take a deep breath and just listen. Ms. Decker clearly does not know how conversation works. A conversation involves an exchange of ideas, a discussion between two or more parties, not merely a unilateral doling out of advice from women to men.

You are right that we need a conversation, but are you willing to allow men the space to have it? The stats within this article show that men are murdered at five times the rate at which women are murdered. Men commit suicide at seven times the rate women are murdered. Men kill themselves more than they kill each other, and far more than they kill women. If anyone should fear men, it is men. It is not women we need to teach men to be gentle towards, it is men themselves.

Telling men to do nothing but listen to women is precisely the kind of conversation we do not need, nor is it a conversation at all, but it is precisely what we are being told to do.

The context was the Isla Vista shooting, but I think it's applicable to the topic as a whole. My bolding.

Ms. Magazine published an article by Donna Decker on how we should not be surprised that a white (in truth, half white) male went on a killing spree in Santa Barbara. Ms. Decker feels that this story will repeat itself if we do not talk about violent men and what makes them that way.

 

[BvBPL]

They are often the opposite sides of the same coin, as has been mentioned previously.

Oh BS.

 

[cardgame]

do you not subscribe to the concept of patriarchy, then?

 

[Senethro]

*sigh* If only the feminists were willing to listen to male views on the subject of male violence, perhaps real progress could be made.

Oh well.

 

[cardgame]

Well, I don't think the current feminist tactic of shaming (not all) men is working too well.

 

[Senethro]

Its a real "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. If feminists speak about male violence they're seen as condemning all men and being anti-male in general, and if they don't then they're somehow insidiously shutting down discussion of male issues.