Stephen Sossna said:
I really dislike dissecting posts sentence by sentence, it always comes across as so aggressive. I mean no offense, though. I just found it helpful to go along the lines of your argument step-by-step.
CFriis87 said:
The power that men had in the past was a necessity for them to fulfill the societal obligations that came with the rights they had.
Yes, power usually comes with responsibilities. Does not diminish the power, though. Else we would not need checks and balances in government.
CFriis87 said:
Men were solely responsible for building up society (not saying they did it without women, just that they were the ones held responsible), as well as supporting for their families.
Well, obviously, only the one with the power can be the one responsible, right? Everything else is nonsense.
CFriis87 said:
The right to vote was initially something men had to earn through military service, the reasoning being that men should at least have a say in the affairs of the government and country that they were sent to die for.
That happened in some societies, not in others. In fact, the only real evidence I found for this kind of voting right is the UK Representation of the People Act of 1918.
CFriis87 said:
Even the most powerful man today is valued more for his usefulness than his humanity, this is what makes men the "disposable" group, despite their social and political power.
Speculation. There is no way to prove that claim.
CFriis87 said:
Women have an inherent worth in our society, but when a man is no longer useful, he becomes worthless.
Again that "inherent worth" is speculative. It isn't clearly defined, for one. One could easily argue that the worth of women is no more "inherent" than the worth of men, if that worth is supposed to be childbirth. Because there clearly are women who lack that ability, and would hence not possess worth. So childbirth to women would be like physical strength to men. Something that most, but not all members of the group have, and only if you have it, you are useful and have worth.
CFriis87 said:
This culture of disposability is as ancient as mankind itself and has to do with evolutionary psychology, Karen Straughan on YouTube explains it a lot better than I can here, so here's one of the first of her videos I have seen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vp8tToFv-bA
I'm not asking you to see things my way, I'm just hoping to have more people see the things I see.
Thanks for the heads-up, I will try watching it soon. I think it's perfectly fine if you want me to see things your way, everyone is allowed to argue
.
It is obvious that, in a biological sense, women are more important than men for the survival of the species. Biological and cultural definitions of worth are not identical, however. Everyone is an object to those that are in a position of power over them. That happens to men and women equally. The difference in recent history is not that there were no male objects, i.e. disposable soldiers, but that there were no female subjects, i.e. Rulers, Magnates or Popes.
Alright, then tell me, now that women have been given those same rights that men paid for and still pay for with their responsibilities, what responsibilities have been given to women in return for their new freedoms and rights?
Other nations may not have demanded military service for the right to vote, but men still had to meet high expectations before they were given that privilege, this goes for every country in the western world. Voting rights were rolled out in stages, first to the ones seen as most responsible for the welfare of the nation as most infrastructures could simply not support giving everyone a vote all at once.
This is a slight bit off topic, but it's a game idea I would love to see realized as it would help put into perspective the idea of male disposability:
Have you perchance ever heard of The White Feather Girls? They were part of a recruitment campaign in Britain during WWI, devised by a high ranking military officer and supported by the feminist movement of the time.
Young girls would be given white feathers to give to men in civilian clothes as signs of cowardice, to shame them into enlisting with the military. The campaign was very effective.
My idea for the game is based on a few true stories of this, and is fairly basic for now:
I really want to see a company make a first person shooter game where you play as a British soldier in the First World War.
You start out as a 34-year-old civilian father of three with a chronically sick wife.
One day, one of the White Feather Girls sees you in civilian clothes and gives you a white feather as a sign of cowardice.
A couple of days later you enlist out of shame.
In the army, you meet a 15 year old boy who lied about his age at the enlistment office after receiving 4 white feathers from a group of girls who cornered him on the street.
He'd already been rejected the first time he enlisted for the same reason, which is why he lied about his age the second time.
Throughout the game you and the boy face the horrors of war together, seeing how it changes the boy and yourself.
In the end you die, the boy survives but goes home irreparably damaged, he finds your house to give your wife a final letter you wrote, the door is opened by one of his daughters who takes the letter and reads it before putting it in a box with the rest of them.
The mother is dead.
Camera returns to the now young man walking away, clenching his fist around something.
Just before the screen fades to black he opens his hand and you see five white feathers float away.
Roll credits starting with: This game is based on true stories of WWI.
Now I ask you... how could these women with a clear conscience, shame men and boys into going to war and dieing for them and their country? How could they, if not from a sense that men are only worth as much as their usefulness?
How can this mentality still be pervasive today in popular culture such as movies and games in the court system that is all too ready to imprison fathers as soon as they can't keep up with alimony payments anymore (look up Thomas Ball).
Lifetime alimony that was never even considered for removal before a few women suddenly found themselves victims of it after the economy caused men to lose their jobs at a much higher rate than women... but it was perfectly alright as long as only men got roped into it.
Title IX that requires boys give up otherwise constitutionally secured rights, for the benefit of women.
The lack of admittance for male victims of Domestic Violence in tax-payer funded shelters and the lack of help available to people attempting to open shelters for those victims (look up a man called Earl Silverman).
Men have always been, and still are seen as expendable resources.
