Sexism; Or The Turning of Tables

[The_Graff]

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Alright, well, I snapped at you because the "trapping dudes with babies" thing is a huge damn pet peeve of mine. I'm not saying it never happens, but you realize that the reverse happens quite often too, right? It's a fairly common tactic for male abusers to refuse to use a condom (or prevent their girlfriend/wife from getting a birth control prescription) and get the woman pregnant as a tactic to control her. This includes actually forbidding the girlfriend/wife from leaving the house -- to stop her from getting help or getting an abortion -- or even moving out to a fairly secluded place where she can't go anywhere without a car. Not only does the pregnancy put a significant health strain on the woman, and make her more physically vulnerable to violence (murder being the number 1 killer of pregnant women in the USA) but once the child is born the abuser can threaten her and the baby to more thoroughly control her and prevent her from escaping.

Obviously this doesn't happen a huge number of times, but it's just as common (if not more) as women trying to "force" a man to impregnate her. I've heard this "forced fatherhood" thing waaay too many times (mostly from assholes, present company excepted) and especially what with the current defunding of Planned Parenthood I just have completely run out of patience with that argument for male "oppression." Yes, some rare unlucky guys get screwed over, but it's not the systemic oppression of having your reproductive choices slowly whittled away by a government full of religious fanatics (and having male abusers happily use this restrictive system against their female victims) that women face. We literally have people who think we should be forced to carry every pregnancy to term even if it kills us; sometimes it does. For me, that's way scarier than child support payments.

And no, when a woman has a baby, the father has to help pay to support that child that he helped make because if he doesn't then the state has to. She isn't "stealing" anything, and really the mother usually ends up spending much more time and money on the child than the father is ever expected to. Also, in cases where the father challenges for custody, he actually has a slightly better chance than the mother of getting custody; however, the majority of the time custody goes to the mother because many fathers don't make any attempt at gaining it. And if you have a problem with the woman being allowed to give birth in the first place, then you'll really just have to take that up with evolution because it gave all the women the uteri and we make the best of it we can -- short of holding women down and cutting fetuses out of them there is no way for men to have a perfectly "equal" say in whether the pregnancy is brought to term.

And I'm just plain exhausted hearing that women "don't seem to want equality" -- I do, I really really do, and I even do all that crap guys whine about like go dutch on dates, don't ever ask for money, don't lie or flirt to advantage myself, I open my own goddamn doors, I've never gotten a female-only scholarship, I've never been hired to fill a quota (in my field/level there is actually a slight hiring bias in favor of men, because there are fewer male applicants) and still I always have to repeat that no, I didn't write the damn WWI draft laws and yes I think men should get as much fucking paternity leave as they want. And then after I spend hours researching stuff like rape stats, and dwindling access to abortion, and reading a few of those man-murders-wife-and-kids-to-show-that-***** news stories, by the time some guy says "men bend over backwards for women" I'm just honestly completely sick of being polite.

So that's my incredibly straightforward answer to you. I'm explaining all this because feminism is incredibly important to me, but please realize that I've heard all of these arguments before (usually from men who literally believe women shouldn't be allowed to vote, I shit you not) and it's truly exhausting to come to this site full of young liberal smart people and hear some of the same crap. So. There you have it, for what that's worth.

Ok, thank you for that; it was clear, concise, well researched and argued. I shall now attempt to reply in kind

I think we come from vastly different backgrounds, this will unavoidably shape our views, opinions and even thought process/logic train. for starters Im not from the US. Im British, and the political/social/soco-political (and any other combnations I cant think of at the moment) systems will be vastly different. one huge point is that by and large abortion is not a huge political ball game here. most of the parties that even include it in their platforms could be charitably described as 'fringe'. as such I think it is probably much easier for a woman to recieve an abortion over here, with a much smaller (if at all evident) social stigma. this change in public opinion, combined with modern contraceptive tech. means that a woman does not have a baby unles she wants it (allegedly barring certain minority communities - another topic for another thread).

I cannot claim to understand what you have had to get through in a different society that seems alien to me, i aplogise without reservation if i have made you feel uncomfortable - that was not the intention of my post.

I am not a misogynist by any worthwhile definition of the term. i am honestly shocked to hear that you know people who do not believe that women should vote (do you by any chance live in that place the movie 'Deliverance' was filmed?). I believe that people should not be judged by the precise configuration of their genetalia. its just that whenever i read up about british feminism, or attempt to engage such a feminist in discussion i am forced to deal with a powerful underlying sense of misandry in their arguments, willful misinterpretation of history, and flawed logic train/thought processes.

there are other reasons for the apparent vehemance in the post you originaly quoted but i think they might bore you.

So, to sum up.
1: it would appear that the feminists ae correct in their claim that not all feminists are the same
2: we appear to have experienced very different wings of the feminist movement
3: this linked with cultural and political differences will lead like night into day to differing opinions on the movement as a whole.
4: if i have offended, upset, or made you at all uncomfortable then i am truly sorry, it was not my intention.

i think that this answers your points, if i have left any untouched then please point them out.

Thank you for your reasoned response. I'm sure you didn't mean to offend; I hardly think you (or most of the guys on here!) are a misogynist, and it's not like you're saying anything hateful... It's just that some of the things I read on here over and over are the same myths and arguments that genuine misogynists do use, and it gets irritating.

My patience is just kind of low with the idea that feminists hate men or are trying to oppress them, because real gender-based hatred looks like this: http://www.mgtowforums.com/forums/mgtow-general-forum/3960-women-incapable-love-degree-men-love.html

Spoiler

Women are not incapable of love to the degree men love. Women are just incapable of love period. The thrill of being able to use her pussy to get free shit is what women mistake for "love".

Look at how callously women murder their children. They cannot conceive of a world outside of themselves. To every woman, it's her world and other people just live in it. They are cold, grasping, selfish, and heartless parasites. They have no souls. They are all vampires. Undead zombies lurching from meal to meal.

Look at a woman's sexuality: find me a woman who fucks because she really loves a man for who he is and wants to experience orgiastic union with him. I dare you! Women have the most disgusting reasons to have sex. Whores are the closest approximations to honest women.

Men make the mistake of loving women only to find out that they fell in love with an apparition, a role she was playing, an idea of who she was that was only a show she put on for them. They pretend to love men to extract resources from them. Make no mistake, women only seem to love themselves, if they love anything at all. Most often I find that women do not love themselves. They are just flitting from one impulse and distraction to the next, always feverishly denying and turning away from the dark, musty void in their cores where a conscience should be.

And yeah, that's a real site. Those guys are freaking batshit, but that's the kind of thing that has been said about women (in one form or another) for centuries. I've honestly never seen that kind of talk from a bunch of feminists, and if you have then please point me to it so I can smack them.

So that's the kind of thing that I, as a feminist, read online because I want to educate myself about misogyny and get a good (depressing) look at how some people still feel about women. And then I go read a news article about a teenage girl who was literally gang-raped on camera while passed out, for which her attackers got a "not guilty" (yes, true story from last year) and so by the time I am reading about child support I've (probably unfairly) run out of sympathy.

Honestly I really do think guys have it rough in unique and terrible ways, and I fully support changing things to help them out, but after reading the above crap I'm just to busy being like ARGLE BARGLE BARGLE why does this world suck?? to have a proper chat about it. ^^;

But as for me, any smart liberal guy who says "I believe that people should not be judged by the precise configuration of their genetalia." is basically a feminist in my book. I just want you smart liberal guys to realize that yeah, a lot of women still have it really shitty out there -- not even me, personally (I've been quite lucky), but a lot of women. And it's not a contest or anything, and it's certainly not your fault, but any time the shittiness women face gets dismissed it gets my back right up and then I start yelling at people on a gaming site.

fairynfuff. i suffer from the same sort of "idiocy induced rage" you talk about too often to have much of a leg to stand on getting annoyed when it happens to others.

its just that things like this happen - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1350761/Women-entitled-council-house-partner-shouts.html (british female judge says that legally a couple having an argument where one of them raises their voice is the same as an ct of physical assault - and has a man kicked out of his house for doing it).

the article makes a point of making it gender neutral ('men and women could be' etc.) but would bet every penny i will ever own that not one single woman will be brought up on this sort of charge.

feminism, as i can see it either has lost its way or was never about equality. i do not want to believe that it was never about equality so i am forced to assume that the modern form is simply in error. and acting to "buff" women to the extent that it becomes an effective "nerfing" of men, if you will excuse the WoW analogy (this is a gaming site after all).

this probably raises more qs than it answers, but i cannot reconcile the forms of feminism i see at action in my country and my daily life with my personal beliefs in equality - and as such am forced to consider myself against feminism, or at least the forms i encounter.

 

[Evidencebased]

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fairynfuff. i suffer from the same sort of "idiocy induced rage" you talk about too often to have much of a leg to stand on getting annoyed when it happens to others.

its just that things like this happen - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1350761/Women-entitled-council-house-partner-shouts.html (british female judge says that legally a couple having an argument where one of them raises their voice is the same as an ct of physical assault - and has a man kicked out of his house for doing it).

the article makes a point of making it gender neutral ('men and women could be' etc.) but would bet every penny i will ever own that not one single woman will be brought up on this sort of charge.

feminism, as i can see it either has lost its way or was never about equality. i do not want to believe that it was never about equality so i am forced to assume that the modern form is simply in error. and acting to "buff" women to the extent that it becomes an effective "nerfing" of men, if you will excuse the WoW analogy (this is a gaming site after all).

this probably raises more qs than it answers, but i cannot reconcile the forms of feminism i see at action in my country and my daily life with my personal beliefs in equality - and as such am forced to consider myself against feminism, or at least the forms i encounter.

Wait, did you actually read the article you linked? The man didn't get kicked out of the house -- the woman asked to be rehoused herself. And it wasn't because they just had a single argument; according to the article:

"Mrs Yemshaw told them he had shouted in front of their two children, failed to treat her like a human, had not given her housekeeping money, and she was scared he would take the children away from her."

It's not that the husband is being punished for being a man, it's that the judge interpreted his behavior in that case as falling under the description of domestic violence (to which the already-existing housing laws apply.) The husband's actions as described by his wife don't sound like an argument, they sound like a pattern of abusive behavior -- dehumanizing and insulting your spouse (especially in front of your kids) is not appropriate behavior by anyone, and I'm frankly surprised you would describe it as him merely "raising his voice."

Furthermore, what indication do you have that a similar ruling would not apply to a woman? This sounds like a not-super-recent application of domestic violence law (the article is from 8 months ago!) and I don't see any suggestion that it won't be or hasn't been applied equally. Have you seen anything in the last year where a woman was specifically excused from this legal standard? If anything this ruling sounds like it may often benefit men -- isn't that a common complaint of some men, that their wives can "get away with" yelling at them because they do not physically assault their husbands? It seems that this would give those men a precedent for calling that behavior "abuse" and being able to move away from it.

Last but not least, how does this:

"Raising your voice at a husband or wife, or a boyfriend or girlfriend, now counts as domestic violence under the landmark Supreme Court judgment. The decision also means that denying money to a partner or criticising them can count as violence..."

in any way "nerf" men? Calling this "nerfing" implies that yelling, criticizing and withholding money are all important tools that men need to use against their spouses, and that blocking these tactics weakens men -- which is an unsettling implication at best. I certainly don't think that mental or emotional abuse is a necessary implement in any marriage, from either partner; I have never done those things in a relationship, and neither have my parents (married forever), and I firmly reject the idea that such actions should be protected by law.

So honestly, what about this ruling makes you think feminism has "lost its way"? I believe that, like any ruling, this could be applied unfairly by a biased court, but you seem to think it's 1) explicitly feminist (despite the gender-neutral language and no mention of feminism being made in the article) and 2) detrimental to men. So please explain how either of these things are true, or in any way reflect poorly on feminism as a movement.

 

[Verlander]

The issue is that in general, over the whole of western society, middle aged, middle class white men have it the best.

Um what? Middle aged and white, yes. But middle class? The rich obviously had it better.

The rich are so rare that they should be considered anomalous results. Technically in the western world, the middle class are rich on a global comparison. Very rich.

It's also down to your definition of "middle class". In different countries it means different things, and even different areas in the same country. In my summary of all of the potential meanings, and their relative places in society, I came to the above conclusion, and I stick by it.

 

[Beryl77]

Oh me and the other boys in my class have often been discriminated in school. Whenever something bad had happened and the teacher tried to find out whose fault it was, all the boys had to stay there, while the teacher said that the girls could go because they surely didn't do it anyway. That has happened countless of times, with no evidence at all, the teachers, male or female always believed it had to be a boys fault and not a girls. Well guess what, there had been some cases where girls had actually been the culprits.
Or when a boy had done something bad he was punished immediately, while in the cases where a girl had gotten into trouble, the teachers said sometimes that they let it slide.
There are a lot more stories like these where the girls had been privileged.