Feminism has made women less likely to be murdered
| August 24th, 2005The London Sunday Times reports on a new British study:
Danny Dorling, the report’s author and professor of human geography at Sheffield University, said that marked changes in the social status of women explained the shift.
“The decline in the female murder rate is probably due to women being more likely and able to walk out of violent relationships,” he said.
“People have both became aware of how dangerous domestic violence is and how fruitless it is to stay in a violent relationship. In addition, women have become economically better off and so, in increasing numbers, they can afford to walk out.”
August 24th, 2005 at 6:16 am
What a dangerous, subversive movement. We need more of it.
This comment was written by Nella.Report this comment to the moderators
August 24th, 2005 at 10:40 am
We must be stopped.
This comment was written by Lauren.Report this comment to the moderators
August 24th, 2005 at 10:43 am
I was GOING to stop you, but when I went to lock you into the purdah, I found that you had all gotten jobs and left!
Curses. Foiled again.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
August 24th, 2005 at 11:01 am
Don’t worry, Feminism still hasn’t been able to stop pregnant women/new moms for taking the blame for getting themselves murdered.
This comment was written by ol cranky.Report this comment to the moderators
August 24th, 2005 at 11:10 am
*Stands proudly as an evil, ‘family’ destroying, lesbian feminist*
Wait! Forgot the hairy-legged part … dammit, don’t have hairy legs …. anyone have some hairy legs to spare? Anyone?
Yoohoo! Need some hairy legs here!
This comment was written by Sarah in Chicago.Report this comment to the moderators
August 24th, 2005 at 12:21 pm
Yo !
(I’m allergic to razors, but I pluck my chinhairs, if that’s any consolation.)
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
August 24th, 2005 at 12:36 pm
Can I donate my evil feminist properties too? I’ve got everything but the “lesbian”. I’m sorta butch-lookin’, though, if that helps.
This comment was written by Creeping Jenny.Report this comment to the moderators
August 24th, 2005 at 1:55 pm
“This is the future of the new Iraqi government - it will be in the hands of the clerics. I wanted Iraqi women to be free, to be able to talk freely and to able to move around. I am not going to stay here.” — Dr. Kuzai, an obstetrician and women’s leader who met President Bush in the White House in November 2003.
Apparently…it’s catching on.
This comment was written by James Emerson.Report this comment to the moderators
August 24th, 2005 at 5:15 pm
not to nitpick, but for the success it did for women, it would appear that feminism completely failed men.
This comment was written by jaketk.Report this comment to the moderators
August 24th, 2005 at 5:28 pm
When did it become feminism’s job to save men?
This comment was written by Terry.Report this comment to the moderators
August 24th, 2005 at 5:31 pm
No, no. Jake the Troll is right. Women should stay with abusive men until we’re killed. That way, with any luck, more men will end up in jail for murder. Think of how much safer the streets will be if we’re just willing to sacrifice that teensy bit more. More dead women and more men in jail. What could possibly serve men better than that ?
(Cue Tammy Wynette. Fade out.)
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
August 24th, 2005 at 9:26 pm
A Room of One’s Own.
This comment was written by Brandon.Report this comment to the moderators
August 25th, 2005 at 3:06 am
My legs are fairly hairy, but I kind of need them so I’m going to have to offer my apologies here.
This comment was written by Nick Kiddle.Report this comment to the moderators
August 25th, 2005 at 4:02 am
My legs are fairly hairy, but I kind of need them so I’m going to have to offer my apologies here.
Why, you selfish, selfish person Nick! ;)
This comment was written by Sarah in Chicago.Report this comment to the moderators
August 25th, 2005 at 4:59 am
Yeah, looks like I’m one of them hairy-legged, selfish feminists.
This comment was written by Nick Kiddle.Report this comment to the moderators
August 25th, 2005 at 6:36 am
I’m about to go visit my mom and was thinking of shaving beforehand. I could probably fill up at least a freezer baggie full-o-hair for you Sarah. … more if I do the pit-hair too.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
August 25th, 2005 at 5:07 pm
perhaps when it is described as , which is defined in the american heritage dictionary as: Affirming political, economic, and social equality for all. such would imply that one would equally defend and protect boys (that is to whom the study is referring to by “young men,” or males in the 14 to 23 year old bracket) and men. at least, that is the impression i got.
but perhaps i am mistaken, through my own lunacy, in assuming that these young boys’ and mens’ deaths are horrid and worthy of protection and prevention.
if you would not trouble you much, could you explain why these deaths matter less than the deaths of women? and along those lines why feminism, being egalitarian, should have no responsibility to prevent the murder of these boys and men? also, i would like to know if you think these men and boys are equally human in comparison to women, and therefore equally worthy of protection from violence, or if you believe them less than human, and therefore expendable?
This comment was written by jaketk.Report this comment to the moderators
August 25th, 2005 at 5:09 pm
this is the link which failed to link properly. http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2005/08/22/why-feminism/#comments
This comment was written by jaketk.Report this comment to the moderators
August 25th, 2005 at 8:23 pm
and along those lines why feminism, being egalitarian, should have no responsibility to prevent the murder of these boys and men?
Others can answer better than I can, but I would hazard a guess that it is because feminism is mostly concerned with raising women up to be equal with men rather than expending energy on the already privileged class. See, trying to make an egalitarian society doesn’t mean that you put resources into protecting the class with power. In trying to make an egalitarian society, one would most likely put one’s resources towards trying to raise the status/power of the disadvantaged classes. But this is only a guess.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
August 26th, 2005 at 5:02 am
Jake Squid–well said. But one more detail–
jaketk, did it mention who exactly was killing all those unfortunate young men?
It remains true in large part that men kill women–and each other. And it’s rather more difficult to make a case for feminism as causation for that.
This comment was written by mom de plume.Report this comment to the moderators
August 26th, 2005 at 5:05 am
feminism is typically supported, funded and used soley for the benefit of upper-class women, so it would seem, purely on a logical basis, that the goal isn’t to create an egalitarian society, but simply to shift the balance of power.
the article states that the majority of the boys and men are poor, so how are they a privleged class? now perhaps i am mistaken in assuming that poor men are legitmately poor, i.e. they have no means out of their situation. and perhaps i am also mistaken in assuming that all children, including boys, would be worth saving.
however, if a society is truly egalitarian, that is it seeks to make people equal, would not that society, upon seeing that poor boys and men are nearly three times as likely to be murdered (and about 30% to 40% women), help them, particularly given that the wealthy would simply continue to ignore their plight?
i would like to thank you for answering my questions. it’s unfortunate that you don’t feel that male lives are worthless, but at least you answered honestly, regardless of the misandry.
This comment was written by jaketk.Report this comment to the moderators
August 26th, 2005 at 5:07 am
interestingly enough, no it did not. then again, it did mention who commits the majority of abuse and murders of children either.
This comment was written by jaketk.Report this comment to the moderators
August 26th, 2005 at 5:48 am
Supported and funded I’ll buy, but that could have something to do with the fact that upper-class women have more time and disposable income with which to support and fund a movement.
But used? Solely? Are you really trying to imply that feminism has done nothing to benefit working-class women and families? That affluent feminists have pursued only goals that will benefit other affluent women?
I won’t pretend there aren’t individual feminists who think making affluent women equal to affluent men at the expense of working-class women is a feminist issue. I’m working-class myself, and it gets to me, but they aren’t all of feminism. A great many feminist goals benefit rich and poor alike, and others, like making healthcare and childcare more widely available, will tend to benefit working-class women more than affluent ones.
This comment was written by Nick Kiddle.Report this comment to the moderators
August 26th, 2005 at 5:55 am
jaketk, do you similarly support the shift of economic imbalance from rich men to poor women? Or are you just whining “Hey you rich spoiled bitches, give all your money to poor men now, else I will call you all hypocrites!” If rich women gave their money to poor men, that would make things ok just how? Oh, I know, no man should be poorer than a woman and all. That would be so unnatural.
Poor men and boys have rough time (as do poor women and girls), that is why I support progressive taxation, well-funded public education, well-funded public health care among other good stuff. That is unrelated to feminism, but feminists tend to be progressives in their other political beliefs. (Correct me if I’m wrong [no, that wasn't directed to you jaketk]).
Did it mention who generally are the primary caretakers?
This comment was written by Tuomas.Report this comment to the moderators
August 26th, 2005 at 6:31 am
Too priceless. Jaketktroll whines in one thread about how he shouldn’t have to spend any of his own money to support anyone he doesn’t personally like– chiefly cheap floozies who can’t keep their knees together (because that’s what most abortions and most women’s health issues are all about). Meanwhile, in this thread, he whines about how if feminists were really good people, they’d give poor men and boys all their money and time.
Tortured logic there, to anyone but an MRA troll. After all, in MRA-land, any moment or penny a woman spends on women’s issues is time and money cruelly wrenched from the clutches of its rightful owner, the male. It’s not a male’s job to care for another male who’s abused. Manly-males have more important stuff to worry about ! “Egalitarian” in this sort of scenario simply means, “Wahhhh !!! I’M important !! Pay attention to meeeeeeeeee !!”
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
August 26th, 2005 at 6:38 am
First of all, in both the sentence quoted above and in post #22, you said the exact opposite of what you appear to mean. Please proofread your posts a little better before you post them, if possible.
Second of all, stop making personal attacks on other posters. Don’t claim that other posters consider male lives worthless unless you can quote them explicitly saying so; don’t accuse other posters of misandry.
I’m willing to let anti-feminists post on my threads as long as they display a reasonable grasp of argumentation (rather than just making up unfounded accusations against feminism out of the blue), write comprehensible English, and refrain from being insulting. Please clean up your act on all three of these counts, if you want to continue posting here.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
August 26th, 2005 at 6:38 am
the article states that the majority of the boys and men are poor, so how are they a privleged class?
They are members of the privileged class called “men.” The majority of white people are poor, yet they are still part of the privileged class called “white.” Is that so difficult to understand.
it’s unfortunate that you don’t feel that male lives are worthless, but at least you answered honestly, regardless of the misandry.
If this isn’t a troll - and a badly done one at that (I think that he meant to leave out the “don’t”) - then I don’t know what is. As is the bit that Nick pointed out.
I’m not going to waste any more time with a person who is here only to lie and to distort what others have said.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
August 26th, 2005 at 6:53 am
I think that Amp is secretly paying a subscription fee to some professional online-sock-puppet-generator that specializes in creating custom trolls to help increase a board’s traffic. Nothing else explains the tedious similarity in the arguments of each and every troll that pops up here.
Amp, I gave you that twenty bucks with the understanding that you were going to buy yourself a nice tie for work or something, not rent-a-trolls. I want my money back. :/
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
August 26th, 2005 at 10:15 am
Marriage Nutzy?
“No divorce for you!” Heh. Couldn’t resist that.
This comment was written by The Republic of T..This was too good to pass up posting about.
U.S. Rep. John Hostettler told a gathering of clergy that divorce is as dangerous to society as gay marriage and that churches are essent…
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August 26th, 2005 at 3:34 pm
nick kiddle writes: “But used? Solely? Are you really trying to imply that feminism has done nothing to benefit working-class women and families? That affluent feminists have pursued only goals that will benefit other affluent women?”
no, merely that the majority of affluent feminists have pursued goals that only benefit other affluent women.
This comment was written by jaketk.Report this comment to the moderators
August 26th, 2005 at 3:42 pm
tuomas writes:
i made no mention of supporting any shift of economic imbalance. i simply stated that “the wealthy would simply continue to ignore their plight.” i would certainly love to see a shift between the wealthy and the poor, for all working-class people, including myself, not just poor women.
could you give me an example of where i am whining about spoiled bitches not giving their money to poor men? and also, couldn’t that statement work in the reverse?
that isn’t my arguement, so i will not defend it.
This comment was written by jaketk.Report this comment to the moderators
August 26th, 2005 at 3:48 pm
your point being what exactly? that it is okay that women abuse more children than men because they are around them more? most crimes against blacks are commited by blacks. are you suggesting then that whites then shouldn’t be concerned with that and seek to prevent it simply because they are not black? i thought in an egalitarian society that gender would not matter, and therefore a crime would be a crime, and would be equally wrong regardless of who committed the crime or the victim of the crime.
This comment was written by jaketk.Report this comment to the moderators
August 26th, 2005 at 4:34 pm
ampersand,
in all fairness, you did not say this on the other thread in which i was accused of wanting to punish women, wanting to control women’s bodies, or wanting to deny general healthcare (which you also accused me of), or even on this thread where i have been accused of not wanting to spend my money on cheap floozies, none of which i have ever stated.
squid stated quote: Others can answer better than I can, but I would hazard a guess that it is because feminism is mostly concerned with raising women up to be equal with men rather than expending energy on the already privileged class. See, trying to make an egalitarian society doesn’t mean that you put resources into protecting the class with power. In trying to make an egalitarian society, one would most likely put one’s resources towards trying to raise the status/power of the disadvantaged classes. But this is only a guess. (i posted this in full to prevent any accusations that i nitpicked his statements)
i am no historian, but from the little history i know, the poor men have never been a “privileged” class. even the argument that all men are a “privileged” class is fairly weak, since all men do not have power, or prestige, or a means of remedying their poverty. what is paritcularly interesting is that poor men includes poor minority men, which in this country, and in Britian, are typically the most unprivileged classes, and i don’t believe anyone can honestly argue that a poor black man has more privilege than a poor white woman.
i reached the conclusion that squid thinks poor men as worthless, i.e. lacking worth; of no use or value, when he stated: rather than expending energy on the already privileged class. perhaps you read this differently than i did, but i took this to mean that they are not worth the effort because of their privilege. they can remedy the problem themselves, and it is not our problem (feminists), but rather theirs.
if this was not the intent, then my apologies.
as for the misandry, i have read enough of your posts here, on ifeminists, and at stand your ground, as well as heard you speak on glenn sacks show, where you have accused men of misogyny for much less. had i made such a statement about women, you would call me a misogynist. or about blacks a racist, or gays a homophobe, etc. so i think it is fair to call squid’s statements an example of misandry when he clearly stated that he felt poor men were too privileged to need feminism’s assistance simply because they are male.
it is your site, but i think it is seriously unfair to allow your friends to make sarcastic, sexist, insulting, mocking and unfounded remarks, and then reprimand me for suggesting that squid’s comment is sexist and that he doesn’t value men when if the statement had been said about women, you would have banned me from your site.
i would like to ask, however, if you would address my points about egalitarianism, what it means, and whether feminism is in fact egalitarianism.
This comment was written by jaketk.Report this comment to the moderators
August 26th, 2005 at 5:56 pm
jaketk,
This will be my last communication with you as you seem to intentionally ignore answers to your questions. But here is one last attempt to see if you have any honesty in you at all:
You said, in comment #33:
i am no historian, but from the little history i know, the poor men have never been a “privileged” class.
How is it that you completely ignored comment #27 in which I wrote in response to your question:
the article states that the majority of the boys and men are poor, so how are they a privleged class?
They are members of the privileged class called “men.”
You are woefully ignorant of what “class” is and what “class” means and the fact that one can be a member of more than one class.
Poor men belong to 2 entirely seperate classes. They belong to the class called “poor” which is not a privileged class. Okay, pay attention here, this is a really difficult concept; they also belong to the class called “men” which is a privileged class.
Although the feminist movement doesn’t put much energy or resources towards helping the class “men,” it does put quite a lot of energy & resources into helping the class “poor.”
Whew, that’s a load to assimilate! Take an hour or two to think about this and then come back and read the rest of this comment. That way you’ll be fresh for the next revolutionarily difficult concept that I am about to lay out for you.
then you wrote:
i would like to ask, however, if you would address my points about egalitarianism, what it means, and whether feminism is in fact egalitarianism.
Feminism is not, in fact, egalitarianism. However, egalitarianism is a goal of the feminist movement.
Now I know that is a difficult concept to grasp and an exercise in logic as well. So, before you answer, I’ll ask you to meditate on those 2 sentences and try to understand them before you ask the exact same questions & make the exact same, unsupported, accusations again.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
August 26th, 2005 at 9:17 pm
jaketk, on post 32: No, my point isn’t that it’s “o.k” for women (abuse is never ok) to abuse children more because they are around them more, my point is that of course you are going to see more violence against children from people who actually are around children, than from people who aren’t. It isn’t a matter of morality (women being more abusive than men naturally, as you seem to imply) , but of opportunity. A nanny with a sad,inexcusable tendency to abuse children can follow those tendencies, while a mountain hermit with similar tendencies probably won’t.
This comment was written by Tuomas.Report this comment to the moderators
August 27th, 2005 at 8:04 am
squid,
i’m sorry that you feel that you were blown off because i did not address your answer.
to respond to your answer, let’s see it again: They are members of the privileged class called “men.”
you stated that i am ignorant of the meaning of the word “class”. so let’s address that first.
the word “class” has a whole host of different meanings, but what your usage is commonly applied to means people having the same social or economic status; “the working class”; “an emerging professional class.” but clearly, all men, which is what you stated by saying “men”, do not have social and/or economic privilege, as you suggested. you then changed your argument to allow for men of poverty to be unprivileged. before you did not address it and stated “They are members of the privileged class called “men.”” if i am mistaken, could you show me where in your initial response you allowed for this.
as i said, i am no historian, but i cannot recall any instance in the US (let’s stick to this country for a moment) where poor, particularly poor minority males have exercised any real privilege. as it stands, minority males, particularly black and latino males, are routinely targeted, are a disproportionally large number of both murderers and victims, are the most at risk as victims of violence, health problems, and poverty, and as it stands occupy few powerful positions. more than that, they face no only discrimination as a result of their race, but their gender as they are more often targeted as “trouble makers”, thieves, rapists, murderers, dishonest, lazy, unintelligent (which is mildly ironic given that you called me ignorant), and thugs far more often than female minorities.
now, none of that changes the fact they are male, and yet they have zero privileges.
so let’s readdress your comment “They are members of the privileged class called “men.”” did you intend for this to literally apply to all men, or did you mean really mean white males? or did you mean rich and/or wealthy white males? and along those lines, are you factoring in the power of the insanely wealthy (which most poor men have no control over), the elements of racist that still exist (which most poor men have no control over, to a certain extent), and societal expectations (which most poor men have no control over)? it seems that you are willing to accept that poverty comes without privilege to men, but you assume that by being male they exercise some sort of “male privilege,” which either had no affect or doesn’t exist given that the murder rate doubled.
honestly, don’t you think that’s some pretty weak privilege if you can’t even stop your boys from being murdered?
now, you stated that feminists put in “quite a lot of energy & resources into helping the class “poor.”” well, this kind of contradicts what you stated before about “feminism is mostly concerned with raising women up to be equal with men rather than expending energy on the already privileged class.” this is clearly contradicted by the results of the study, since one would logically assume that if feminists were indeed the poor as whole, both murder rates would have decreased. so which one it is? are feminists helping the “poor,” which would include males, or are they putting all their resources into helping poor women, which clearly doesn’t change the overall situation of poverty by all that much, and has no affect, or perhaps contributes to, the rising murder rate of males?
now i have a serious question for you. if feminism is not egalitarian, i.e. it is not all-inclusive, then how can it promote egalitarianism? this actually makes no sense, and is completely illogical. it sounds as if feminists wish to have an equal society, but are unwilling to be the first to provide equality. in other words, it is like the christian right who says we’re all god’s children, but not if you’re gay. doesn’t like a contradiction to you? that one of feminism’s goals would be equality and yet it would not practice it all?
you are right, that is not egalitarianism so much as it is socialism, and a rather frightening reversion of socialism.
as a side note, while i’m sure ampersand will reprimand you on your sarcasm, let me just say that before you resort to sarcasm, which can be quite amusing, you should at least double check your previous statements to make sure you haven’t contradicted yourself. you should refrain from calling a person ignorant simply because you disagree with his argument. and most importantly, you should make sure that you aren’t making “the exact same, unsupported, accusations again.”
ann coulter does it, so it can’t be that hard.
This comment was written by jaketk.Report this comment to the moderators
August 27th, 2005 at 8:08 am
tuomas writes: No, my point isn’t that it’s “o.k” for women (abuse is never ok) to abuse children more because they are around them more, my point is that of course you are going to see more violence against children from people who actually are around children, than from people who aren’t. It isn’t a matter of morality (women being more abusive than men naturally, as you seem to imply) , but of opportunity. A nanny with a sad,inexcusable tendency to abuse children can follow those tendencies, while a mountain hermit with similar tendencies probably won’t.
i don’t know if women are more abusive than men. i do know that women commit more abuse against children than men, though i could truly careless so long as they aren’t allowed to walk because they’re women, which is often the case. my point was that it shouldn’t matter who the victim is or who the perp is, which is the reason why “who commits most murders” was brought up. it should not matter, and it is truly sad that to some people it does matter and it is excusable.
This comment was written by jaketk.Report this comment to the moderators
August 27th, 2005 at 9:26 am
It’s already been explained to you that any particular instance of female privilege is irrelevant because on balance men are privileged.
This is so obvious that Jake Squid is entitled to address you with sarcasm and condescension, a particulary smarmy kind of insult because it entitles the speaker to invoke plausible deniability and, if that isn’t cowardly enough, it is the more so because he is a member of the protected class on this board.
Amp states that “anti-feminists” must (1) avoid unfounded accusations, (2) rite gud gramer and (3) avoid insults. That the kool kids aren’t held to the same standard is evident in any thread any time to the first-time visitor. Of course, it’s Amp’s board and he is free to do what he wants including portraying himself as intellectually honest. We all self-actualize our own way.
So, Squid states boldly and chivalrously and italicizedly that “They are members of the privileged class called ‘men,’” without the slightest inclination to prove that the “class” on the short end of longevity, a time-honored index of quality of life, is, in fact, the privileged “class.” Are there other such indeces, Squid? Have you fully accounted for this, Squid, or is this just an “unfounded accusation?” Or is it that jaketk and I are “woefully ignorant” because we don’t subscribe to your religious fundamentalism?
This comment was written by Pasatiempo.Report this comment to the moderators
August 27th, 2005 at 9:43 am
(Yawn.)
http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2004/09/15/the-male-privilege-checklist/#comments
In post 89 of this earlier discussion, Pasatiempo, already well-versed (if not schooled) in this debate, referred to the Male Privilege Checklist as “the bleatings of passive-aggressive non-entities.”
Your feigned lack of experience in previous discussions of exactly what male privilege is are duly noted, Pasa. My, my… a lying, disingenuous troll. Who woulda’ thunk it ?
Maybe you and jaketiktroll should run off now and start your own DV shelter for poor and/or minority men. I mean, because you’re both sooooo sincere in your concern for poor and/or minority men. You couldn’t possibly just be using them as a club to badger middle-class White women with. Oh, no. (rolleyes) Compassion just oozes out of your earlier posts, particularly jaketiktroll’s proud insistence that his money is HIS, by gum, and none of the shiftless lower orders (ie– women) have any right to it.
I guess “egalitarianism,” or what passes for it in MRA-land, isn’t the responsibility of men, only women. (Yawn.)
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
August 27th, 2005 at 9:45 am
Didn’t this come up on the “race traitor” thread a couple of weeks ago? Men are privileged because when they’re compared with their female peers (affluent men with affluent women and working-class men with working-class women), the men always have the better deal.
This comment was written by Nick Kiddle.Report this comment to the moderators
August 27th, 2005 at 9:56 am
That’s just crazy-religious-fundie-talk, Nick.
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
August 27th, 2005 at 10:35 am
Insult
I referred to half of the Checklist that way - the half that is about “what is said.” Note the passive voice. In the passive voice there is no subject; that is, the subject is a non-entity. I apologized for the word “bleatings.” Since I am “feigning” by not referring to an earlier post, why don’t you show me a post in which you’ve ever apologized for anything, Alsis, or is this another Rule of Momentary Convenience to which the kool kids are exempt?
Insult
Was this a statement or is this another smarmy form of insult and unfounded accusation that entitles the writer to plausible deniability? Is it a statement or isn’t it Alsis?
It isn’t the responsibility of men or women. Nor is it the “responsibility” of those that advocate it. But if integrity means anything to you…
Unfounded accusation? Where’s the proof of this?
The kool kids agree. Therefore it must be so.
This comment was written by Pasatiempo.Report this comment to the moderators
August 27th, 2005 at 12:17 pm
You know where the door is, Pasa. Perhaps our host will miss you, but I certainly won’t any more than most feminists probably will.
If you don’t want to be insulted, stop baiting. If you want to prattle about “integrity,” try acting as if you yourself had some small scrap of it.
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
August 27th, 2005 at 12:56 pm
Since you’ve demonstrated your skills with the search function, here’s a clue: it works the same way at SYG. Why don’t you scamper on over, alsis, and try it. You’ll find that I’ve only participated in two threads:
1. Where I’ve tried to convince them that putting women in positions of political power will benefit men.
2. Where I’ve taken them to task for their negative attitudes about women playing in men’s golf tournaments.
I live only to help others clarify their thinking and I’m honored when I can accomplish that, just as you’ve honored me, alsis, with your impish insults.
You have a movement based on a fundamental assumption: that men are privileged relative to women. Tell me how it would hurt your movement to prove that…unless, of course…
I’ll say this about SYG - even though they generally see only that which validates their point of view (like the Kool Kids, here) and even though the calibre of misogyny there approaches that of misandry here (well, okay, not quite), I can show you many times when Dr. Evil has admonished posters for making generally negative remarks about women. Can you show me where the equivalent has happened here or did you really want to discuss integrity?
Now, scamper, alsis. Scamper, scamper.
This comment was written by Pasatiempo.Report this comment to the moderators
August 27th, 2005 at 1:32 pm
which doesn’t hold any water when it comes to the atrocities commited against black, latino, chinese, and native amercian men in this country. but i’m sure that you can find some way to explain how James Byrd had it better than black women when he was dragged to his death, or how it’s so much easier for a group of latino boys to walk down the street past a cop car, or how much better it is for black and latino men, along with most poor men, who are serving more time for the same crimes women commit. certainly you could “find” a reason, but given the history of violence directed almost exclusively at minoritymales in this country, as i said, it really doesn’t hold any water.
but if you have any examples of how these men have a privilege that is of any real value ( i.e. they can actually use it) that is not extended to women, i would love to see them.
This comment was written by jaketk.Report this comment to the moderators
August 27th, 2005 at 1:59 pm
alsis39, your concern for abused boys and men is impeccable. i haven’t seen such concern since the archbishops, cardinals and the pope handed over all the nuns and priests who raped little boys.
i suppose i have just being whining about my privilege. i’m a male, so clearly it was I who raped my aunt when i was 4 years old. such is my narcissism that i should downplay my privilege of no longer being able to have children. how horribly mistaken i’ve been in thinking such acts were somehow wrong and worthy of prevention. no, you’re right. it would be much better for me to shut my mouth, take it like a man, and stop trying to stop keep adults, especially women, away from other 4 year old little boys who go around raping them and abusing their male privilege. no wonder my uncle took his own life. he couldn’t stand his privilege of having raped so many adults in his long 23 years.
now i must go and listen to “cry me a river” lest i actually begin to think raping little boys is a crime…
This comment was written by jaketk.Report this comment to the moderators
August 27th, 2005 at 2:21 pm
It’s been proven, Pasa. You just don’t like the proof, so you ignore it.
I don’t care whether you hang out at SYG, The Hard Rock Cafe, or the Junior Woodchucks. You’re a misogynist and a troll. You and men like Jaketiktroll don’t come here to learn anything. You come for a good wallow in self-pity and a chance to set up straw folk for feminists to waste energy knocking down. You don’t even believe in your hearts, such as they are, much of what you say. For instance, if you truly believed that far too much of the MPC was taken up with “passivity,” and that by extention too much of feminism was taken up with it, you’d be aboard the feminist bandwagon with bells on. What could possibly suit a wannabe’ dominator, such as yourself, more than a planet full or women who focused on nothing but our own passivity ?
Trouble is, feminism is not merely about passivity. Discussing the issues espoused in the MPC might make some women weep, “Oh, poor me,” and send them off into a corner to stare at their own feet. However, I don’t think most women –or men who are truly interested in learning– use it in that fashion. Most women want to understand why they feel helpless in a patriarchal society as a stepping stone to breaking out of helplessness.
That’s what really crawls up the noses of patriarchs, Pasa. It’s what leads them to whine that women don’t care about men because DV shelters don’t tend to men in equal numbers to women. The feminists who worked, fought, lobbied, and dug deep in their own pockets to create DV shelters (which, despite Jaketiktroll’s ill-informed whinging, do not merely tend to women of the country club set. Nor do they exclude abused boys.) didn’t sit around passively;That’s for damn sure.
If men really give a shit about abused men, why aren’t they working, fighting, lobbying, and digging deep in their own pockets to build DV shelters that would cater to the needs of men who have experienced domestic violence ? Why the continual need to dump all that on the shoulders of feminists, who would be the first to point out that DV shelter employees don’t get rich, and can’t even care for all the women in the community who need help ?
Jaketik, I think you should stop trying to make me into the scapegoat for the abuse you’ve suffered. And stop putting words in my mouth in the bargain. I don’t understand why your abuse somehow translates into your right to turn around and lob a volley of completely unsubstantiated acusations at women who support DV shelters for women. If the slice of pie you and other men are getting is too small for you, it doesn’t speak well of you at all that the only people you want to grab more pie from are those who have as little, or less, than you do. Why not show some meaningful nerve, and learn from the women who built support networks from next to nothing ? Why not learn from feminism, instead of sneering at it and tearing it down in some ham-fisted and ill-advised campaign to ease your own pain ?
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
August 27th, 2005 at 3:49 pm
I’ve read this board for about two years and have only posted in two threads. If I don’t come here to learn, then what?? Self-abuse?? All the great jokes??
I’m looking at phosphorous dots on my computer screen, utterly unthreatened by them and trying to respond directly to those that form themselves into the word, “alsis.” You, on the other hand seem to feel the need to project onto me whatever it is that will make you feel comfortable. So, don’t go to SYG and see what I’ve said. Call me a “misogynist.” Make cracks about “Junior Woodchucks.” Categorize me, assume my belief system and dismiss me. All of this obviously benefits you in some way and doesn’t bother me. Therefore, it’s a net positive and a good thing.
Now, would you like to link me to the proof? I may have missed it but I certainly didn’t ignore it.
This comment was written by Pasatiempo.Report this comment to the moderators
August 27th, 2005 at 7:54 pm
alsis39, two words: grow up.
now you’re going to lambast me for putting my time, money and effort into helping abused men and boys? it’s obvious that you care so little about preventing abuse or protecting children based on your tactless comments. you want to be the victim so badly that you would literally post some of the most sexist nonsense i have ever seen. i honestly haven’t seen comments so blatantly biased since i watched videos about the civil rights movement. it takes a certain wantonly cruel attitude to flat-out dismiss what i said, and then have the audacity to claim that i am making you the scapegoat when 5 out of your 8 posts on this thread have done exactly that to me.
you said i should learn from feminism. my aunt is a feminist, just as you are. what more do you want me to learn from her, or you? my aunt lifted no finger to stop any of the abuse that happened in my family. instead, as a feminist she blamed it on ” the patriarchy” and then proceeded to participated in it. of course, she conveniently found no contradiction in this, with which you appear agree. so what exactly am i supposed to learn from feminism that i haven’t learned from the non-feminist men and women who have taken in their homes and shown me what it is like to be treated as a person, something no feminist has ever extended to me?
equality? i support groups like Stop Abuse For Everyone; feminists do not.
prevention? i put my money into groups that provide services and forums for male victims of abuse; feminists do not.
empathy? i support local initiatives to help the poor and working-class (which i happen to be) when i have the extra money to do so; feminists do not.
tolerance? i speak at conferences about my experiences of abuse not only at the hands of my aunt, but a person who grew up in an abusive family, and tolerate comments like yours in the hopes that the men at these conferences will get the courage to speak up and ignore comments like yours. as a side note, i have actually had men 30 years my senior come up to me in tears for daring to speak about my abuse.
social responsibility? i spend three days out of the week volunteering to spend time with other abused children. i would spend more time, but i have to work, and i have an equal responsibility to my two brothers and two cousins.
i don’t blame women as a class for what happened to me. i don’t mock any feminist attempts to bring services to abused women. more importanly, I don’t mock abused women. you clearly have no problem doing that to men and boys. but what is so shocking is that you think i have learned nothing from feminism at all, or rather that feminism is flawless, and there aren’t legitimate reasons for not supporting it, let alone questioning it. so i ask again, what exactly am i supposed to learn feminism?
in all seriousness, you need to grow up. lose the second grade antics, the victimology, and the unecessary sarcasm (as i saw from your response, you don’t really seem to like it when it’s directed at you, so perhaps you should take that as a cue to stop doing it), and stop pretending that any and every act done to offer the slighest assistance to any male is some attempt to steal from women.
and btw, i had enough nerve to get on the stand and testify about my abuse.
This comment was written by jaketk.Report this comment to the moderators
August 27th, 2005 at 10:14 pm
I don’t see how she’s lambasting you for putting effort into protecting abused males. In fact, it seems like she’s downright demanding it.
BUT not at the expense of Women’s DV shelters.
Look, let’s take it away from people…if you’re trying to save the Spotted Owl, and someone else is trying to save the Californian condor, the Condor people do not try to take money from the Spotted Owl people so that it’ll all be “equal”. They try to get their own money. And they don’t demand that the SO people place the SO second to the CC.
Same thing…it is not our responsibility to put our issue secondary to yours.
This comment was written by Antigone.Report this comment to the moderators
August 27th, 2005 at 10:44 pm
Thanks, Antigone. I tried to write a response to these twerpfaces earlier, and the computer ate it. So I gave up and went to hear the Symphony. Your response is better anyway.
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
August 27th, 2005 at 10:47 pm
P.S– Jaketik, if “growing up” means behaving the way you have here, sneering at not just feminist women but men who sympathise with the feminist cause, I think I’ll take a pass. Half the time you spend here writing, you are barely even coherent, and the other half you spend on straw men. The fact that you were abused doesn’t mean that you get a free pass for shitting all over this space. It just makes you someone who deals with his abuse by shitting all over a bunch of people he doesn’t even know. You call that being “grown up” ? I sure as fuck don’t.
Pasa, if you have been reading here for two years and can still pull this kind of shit, my advice to you is to spend a couple more years here rereading all the pieces that you clearly did not comprehend the first time, prefereably in silence.
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
August 28th, 2005 at 12:56 am
And before this board I read the Ms boards, the NOW boards, the ACLU feminist boards and the AOL boards all of which caved due to infighting. You should thank me…the common enemy effect, ya know. All operated on the same assumption of male privilege and none ever showed the slightest inclination to prove it.
Alsis, I used to work a couple of doors down from a county mental health facility. There were more than the usual number of loons on the street even by downtown standards. They would approach me and beg for money and I’d look them in the eyes and ask what they wanted it for. The pat response was they were hungry and wanted to buy food. So I would sometimes ask them out to lunch. I eventually got banned from some of the local eateries that didn’t want me bringing in stinky homeless loons.
Thing is, loons are human beings whose lives are as valuable as anyone else’s. They beg from people who look past them. Even those who give them money look past them. This is what they deal with. So I look them in the eye and they so appreciate it and so open up. And what else was I supposed to do - go out to lunch with 3-piece-suited, burb-dwelling cups of vanilla boredom like myself?
I took pleasure in granting them the respect they craved but I also took a sardonic pleasure in listening to their stories. Loons tell great stories.
It is for this reason that I read gender issues boards. But I’ll tell you something alsis - when I asked a loon why he or she believes that Mars is made entirely of 1950s-style formica dinette sets, they would usually tell me. You, on the other hand, refuse to produce the proof you say you have to what is obviously one of your most ardent beliefs. I ask you to put it on display for the whole WWW to see. What could be better for you?
Yet when I ask, you shuck, you jive, you insult, you cast very unpleasant aspersions and, generally rant semi-coherently. For example, I ask for proof of male privilege and you say things like: “I mean, because you’re both sooooo sincere in your concern for poor and/or minority men. You couldn’t possibly just be using them as a club to badger middle-class White women with.”
See what I mean, alsis?
As your final thought to me you muster your obviously-considerable IQ and say “this kind of shit.” So, that’s that.
Well, here’s my final thought to you. I don’t believe you have that proof. Furthermore, I don’t believe you believe in male privilege. And that, alsis, means that you’re not a loon.
This comment was written by Pasatiempo.Report this comment to the moderators
August 28th, 2005 at 2:45 am
Jaketik said :
This comment was written by BritGirlSF.“are feminists helping the “poor,” which would include males, or are they putting all their resources into helping poor women, which clearly doesn’t change the overall situation of poverty by all that much, and has no affect, or perhaps contributes to, the rising murder rate of males?”
Even if we accepted your framing, how would putting resources into helping poor women cause more men to be murdered?
Report this comment to the moderators
August 28th, 2005 at 6:28 am
Pasa, a few posts ago, you were blathering about Jake Squid being a “religious fundamentalist.” If I were you, I’d think twice about running around seeing “loons” on every street corner, and start concentrating on the one in your mirror.
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
August 28th, 2005 at 8:50 am
Certainly, I’ve considered that I like taking loons out to lunch due to birds-of-a-feather.
I came to think of feminism as a form of religious fundamentalism reading Lynn from the old Ms boards. Remember her? She was so repulsed by sins of the flesh that she felt compelled to hack off chunks of her own. Now, there’s a character.
She used to explain that radical feminism is the only legitimate form of feminism because it’s the only kind through which all the world’s events can be subjected to feminist analysis. Of course, when you start with a core truth (male privilege, patriarchy, whatever) from which all other truths derive, analysis is pretty darn easy; in fact, it’s automatic.
She used to say that “radical” means going to the root. But, it was the root truth, itself, that was not subject to analysis and, in fact, was jealously guarded therefrom. This, of course, makes it the furthest thing from radical; it makes it belief; it makes it religion. Take the fact that a group of people hold a belief in a core truth from which all other truths derive, throw in sins of the flesh, damnation and general zealotry and you have something very much like what most people think of as religious fundamentalism.
Like any good religious zealot Squid feels entitled to insult the infidel and thereby break the rules of this board. Oh wait! Those rules don’t apply to him. Never mind.
So, alsis, is male privilege your belief or do you have this proof you say you have?
This comment was written by Pasatiempo.Report this comment to the moderators
August 28th, 2005 at 9:21 am
Address my point, please.
This comment was written by Antigone.Report this comment to the moderators
August 28th, 2005 at 9:39 am
Pasa, I’m missing why the Male Privilege Checklist does not count to you as proof. I’m missing why the perhaps hundreds of threads on this blog that you claim to have read do not count as proof. Sounds to me that like most trolls, what you want to play is a the customary game of tit-for-tat. “Women do it, too.” That is, if Jaketik was abused, the appropriateness of feminists building and maintaining shelters for other women is rendered null and meaningless. Note that when he started out here, he was proclaiming that feminism should prove to his satisfaction that it was egalitarian. Soon, he was launched on a barely-coherent tirade about how women were to blame because he had been abused, and since I wasn’t ready to coo and sigh and agree with him completely, I was obviously mocking the notion that men can be abused. So his concerns doesn’t appear to be other men’s sufferings at all. They appear to be about guilt-tripping women who care for other women.
This in itself is a clear-cut, and routine, case of privilege. A man has suffered, so of course he considers it his right to make women drop everything that they are doing and to come and fix what hurts him. He does not ask this of other men. He asks it of women.
You clearly have a huge personal stake in denying the notion that male privilege exists, Pasa. Even though it’s in front of you. Just as you throw about terms like “victimhood” or “sarcasm” as if you yourself didn’t initiate that behavior here. You don’t have any problem with wallowing in “victimhood” nor any trouble with using “sarcasm,” but you consider these things your male privilege. You define the debate and choose the tools, and then snigger at me because I won’t be sweet and cuddly and pat you on the head when you’re doing it. Again, you invoke your male privilege simply by dint of the way you pretend to conduct debate. One set of rules for you, another set entirely for a mere woman.
Considering some of the nutbars over in your MRA clubhouse (half of whom are probably just Dr. Evil playing sock puppet with himself), you really need to be careful about trying to write off feminism just because you have problems with Lynne. As for me, I’m more than happy to critically analyze racism and classism in feminism. I’m more than happy to go toe to toe with any feminist, radical or otherwise, who I feel is behaving like a jackass. However, I don’t see why I should do these things at your command so you can sit back with your popcorn and reinforce your belief that any criticism of feminism means the whole thing should be thrown out. I don’t believe that anti-feminists care a fig about racism or classism when the only time they appear to have any interest in them is in a context of “See, I told you feminism is icky !”
Lynne is crazy. It doesn’t follow that the initial clip in this thread is wrong. Feminism has made it possible for women in abusive relationships to improve their chances of escaping abusive homes alive and in one piece. Does that mean we’ve achieved Utopia for all humanity ? Hell, no. Does that mean I’m going to start berating feminism for not opening up one men’s shelter for every woman’s shelter ? Hell, no.
Despite your continual sniping at Jake Squid, I still fail to see how tagging him as a “fundamentalist” proves anything, except that you wouldn’t know a fundamentalist if one bit you in the ass.
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
August 28th, 2005 at 10:06 am
Yo Alsis. I know it’s early Sunday mornin’, but ya’ wanna beer?
[passes premium micro-brew]
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
August 28th, 2005 at 10:39 am
I don’t think I need one quite so much as do the good folk of Louisiana, Q, but– hell, why not ?
[clink] :D
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
August 28th, 2005 at 10:54 am
The MPC doesn’t count as proof because the author says so. He explicitly says that the MPC is only to provoke thought and does not constitute a gender privilege balance sheet. He has declined to do one for his own reasons. The hundreds of threads on this blog don’t constitute proof for the same reason.
You want to conflate my concerns with jaketk’s so as to dismiss me. This is incorrect. For example, I couldn’t care less about male DV centers. That’s his concern and your straw woman as it pertains to me.
I haven’t used the word “victim” or any of its variations. And you, of all people, are calling me on sarcasm. I’ve posted here twice in two years and the sarcasm seems to just keep on chooglin’ here without me.
I have no personal stake. Like I said, I take a sardonic form of intellectual-lite interest in this. Do I see male privilege? Of course. Just as I see female privilege. I see people with privileges and problems and the biggest determinant is always the same - the view of the half-cup.
Jaketk pointed out that feminism is defined as a movement dedicated to equality between the sexes. Various people here, and feminists in general, say that they don’t have to concern themselves with instances in which men are disadvantaged which would seem to violate the movement’s basic purpose. Feminists respond that they don’t have to concern themselves with male disadvantage because, on the whole, women are disadvantaged.
Antigone equates feminism with people who seek funds for spotted owls (kinda like you equate men with rapists). As Antigone says, people who seek funds for spotted owls don’t have to concern themselves with whether the concerns of whale people are equally met. Of course there’s a difference - spotted owls don’t seek funds for spotted owls. People seek funds for spotted owls. In other words, people who seek funds for spotted owls are seeking to benefit The Other. Feminism is comprised of people seeking to benefit their own.
This means that feminism seems to want to portray itself as a Ship of High Principle with Sails Swollen by the Winds of Lofty Ideals while really being a self-serving interest group…unless, of course, women really are disadvantaged as a whole. If so, I’d think that feminism would be highly motivated to prove it. You said you have proof and, I think you have proof that satisfies you. That’s good. You’re happy and it takes nothing from me. That makes it a good thing. I’ll go back to reading. Thanks for responding, alsis.
This comment was written by Pasatiempo.Report this comment to the moderators
August 28th, 2005 at 12:16 pm
Alsis: I didn’t know they drank micro-brew’s down south. Seems more like an edumacated Northern type thang. I was just offering what I had to make more room for the PBR. Hell, I figure even if I’m not down on the Gulf Coast I can still throw a damn righteous hurricane party!
[passes another micro-brew]
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
August 28th, 2005 at 12:54 pm
Yo, Pasa, Jake, run along back to your home board and talk about us evil “man haters” over here, because what with all the male privilage you have, there’s not a hell of a lot of work to do in your um, social movement.
Proof of male privilage? The fact that you spend your time here demanding feminists to build shelters for men who are battered, rather than doing it yourselves. Men being so accustomed to expecting women to wait on them, and all that.
This comment was written by Radfem.Report this comment to the moderators
August 28th, 2005 at 1:00 pm
As far as SYG, the last time I checked in, some of the women posters were leaving because of the unchecked misogyny on that board. Because even if they weren’t touting the feminist line, or they were doing the opposite, that wasn’t enough there. They had to actually sit on their hands listening to men vent on their own misogyny, which although I didn’t agree with their philosophies, is pretty outrageous. {click moment, perhaps?}
Having not checked out that place lately, I am heartened to hear that its moderator has cracked down on his posters(most of which, are probably various “alters” of his) to not say negative things about women.
This comment was written by Radfem.Report this comment to the moderators
August 29th, 2005 at 6:11 am
both you and ampersand have said this. i asked this of him, but he declined to answer, but perhaps you will. when has this ever happened? since i’ve worked with male survivor groups for the last 3 years (since my second year of college), i have yet to see any example of this. can you provide me with an example of where DV shelters, rape centers, or therapy groups were provided for men at the expense of women’s shelters?
you do realize this works both ways? you pretty much rendered the “patriarchy” rhetoric moot by this statement. should men not focus more on their own issues and not support any women’s issues at all, since it would be of greater concern to them? afterall, it is not our responsibility to put our issue secondary to yours.
This comment was written by jaketk.Report this comment to the moderators
August 29th, 2005 at 6:20 am
radfem writes:
really? can you show me where i suggested that? i can show you where i said i do it myself. perhaps you missed them.
i support groups like Stop Abuse For Everyone
i put my money into groups that provide services and forums for male victims of abuse
i speak at conferences about my experiences of abuse not only at the hands of my aunt, but a person who grew up in an abusive family
i spend three days out of the week volunteering to spend time with other abused children
if you check some of my earlier posts on this thread, there are a few more. so perhaps you’d like to retract your statement, as i clearly “do it myself.”
This comment was written by jaketk.Report this comment to the moderators
August 29th, 2005 at 6:41 am
BritGirlSF writes:
i did not say “cause”, but “contribute.” not to bring about, but rather to act as a factor. secondly, the article isn’t speaking about adult men, but rather males between the ages of 14 to 23. that would means boys and teenagers, not men. since these services often turn away males who need assistance, and i seriously doubt that none of them would seek help, it’s very easy to see how that could contribute to the murder rate. they feel they have no means out, and yet here is a means of that, but they are being rejected.
as we have seen in schools, when you treat someone as secondary, they will often accept the role. in much the same way, by ignoring these boys and teenagers, those feminist-run shelters are merely verifying what the boys already think: they don’t matter. which, i might add, has not been disputed by anyone here.
now, this is not exclusive to feminism. this happens to these boys and teenagers across the board by just about everyone. ergo, i said the gender-exclusive aid perhaps contributes to the murder rate, most specifically by contributing to the cause of the murders in the first place.
This comment was written by jaketk.Report this comment to the moderators
August 29th, 2005 at 6:46 am
alsis39, thanks for proving my point. when you are done taking pot-shots at me for speaking about my abuse, are you going to tell me what i need to learn from feminism?
This comment was written by jaketk.Report this comment to the moderators
August 29th, 2005 at 9:20 am
Jaketik, you have been little else since your descent to this blog aside from tedious, rude, self-pitying and barely coherhent. I’m not interested in teaching you anything. Your blathering in the abortion thread would have told me everything I need to know about how much you desire to help any woman (and by extension the rest of society) –at risk to your precious wallet and obviously monstrous ego– even if this thread did not. If abused men and boys need to rely on the likes of you to give them a leg up, I pity them.
Furthermore, you have some fucking nerve claiming that anyone here is “taking potshots” at you over abuse. The person who arrived on this blog to take pot-shots from the start was you. In fact, I believe Jake Squid has mentioned on this board before that he was abused as a kid. Perhaps you would have found that out and had some meaningful dialogue with him were you not so eager to smarmily liken him to Ann Coulter. You wrote the book on potshots, so save your whining for someone who cares.
You simultaneously claim to care about men and boys, even as you shit all over feminists because you feel that it is women’s job to drop their work for abused women (and their kids, who are often boys, though you don’t seem to comprehend that) and tend to you. You claim to be doing all this hard work, and yet you have no clue how to start a shelter, and I assume, your MRA buddies haven’t been exactly eager to help you on your quest. Otherwise, I doubt you’d have time to play your bullshit games here;You’d probably be off helping, instead of venting your misogyny on feminists.
Mister, get over this idea of yours that we exist to be your handmaidens. Get over the idea that you deserve so much as one scrap of respect when all you wish to do with your experiences is to trot them out here in a futile attempt to guilt-trip feminists. Go to google and type in “Second Wave feminism” or “Domestic Violence Shelters” or the name of your local DV shelter and its board, for pity’s sake. If you are sincere, which I doubt, the research is out there for the taking.
If men were doing much of anything else, we would never have needed DV shelters, much less feminism, in the first place. Furthermore, it has long been my opinion that one of the reasons MRAs by the truckload wail at the top of their lungs about abused men and boys, and yet there are no DV shelters for men (other than a scant handful for men in same-sex abusive relationships) is because they hate abused men. A man abused by a woman or another man has been symbolically feminized, in the eyes of patriarchs. He has devolved to the level of a “mere” woman, in their eyes. He is thus the concern of women, not men. In a philosophy of gender roles where one’s only possible part is active/male or passive/female, there is no other possible outcome. You’re either a manly man who abuses, or you’re an “honorary” woman.
Why, your buddy Pasa up there himself just said:
Would you spend one-quarter the vitriol on his lack of concern for your abuse as you have on feminists ? Of course you wouldn’t. Pasa’s a man.
So, hey, “Thanks for proving my point for me.”
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
August 29th, 2005 at 9:29 am
Qgrrl wrote:
Having grooved all weekened to Cajun/Zydeco, I’d like to think that the fine women in the Magnolia Sisters or Balfa Toujours would appreciate a good microbrew, but I will acede to your expertise. Haven’t gotten to visit the South since I was a wee pup.
radfem wrote:
But they’re such a diverse lot, aren’t they ? On one hand, you have Pasa proudly stating that while he supports gender-integrated gold courses, he doesn’t actually care about DV issues. OTOH, you have Jaketik whining about the evils of feminist “socialism” even as he wants us to direct our “socialist” urges toward healing his pain;This, after proudly proclaiming in the other thread that irresponisble women weren’t his problem and he didn’t have to spend his precious dimes on their health or family planning issues.
It could be one hell of a game of idelogical Crack-The-Whip, for any feminist fool enough to hie herself over to their home board with her arms held out. It won’t be me, though. I’d like to keep my arms still attached, all the better to hoist Qgrrl’s beer.
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
August 29th, 2005 at 9:39 am
jake, thank you for the clarification. What threw me about you is that most of the men I know working towards setting up programs for battered men, do not show up on threads about feminists, and the battering of women, to berate them. The ones I know, if they turn to feminists at all, it is for information about resources, etc. After all, why reinvent the Wheel, and I don’t know of any feminist that has turned them down for that assistance. Never, have they asked feminists to put down everything they are doing, to focus on the needs of men. That is a tool that men have grown accustomed to utilizing under the patriarchal system.
But I stand corrected on your background.
Men as a gender, being second-class citizens? That will be the day….Unfortunately, we likely won’t live to see it, because some comet across the galaxy will probably come here and wipe us all out before that day arrives, if ever.
alsis said:
“Would you spend one-quarter the vitriol on his lack of concern for your abuse as you have on feminists ? Of course you wouldn’t. Pasa’s a man.”
Exactly, and all antifeminist men have gotta stick together against those evil women, after all…
This comment was written by Radfem.Report this comment to the moderators
August 29th, 2005 at 1:16 pm
radfem, i’m going to ask this yet again: can you show me where i asked feminists to drop what they were doing to focus on the needs of men?
This comment was written by jaketk.Report this comment to the moderators
August 29th, 2005 at 1:33 pm
alsis39, stop using strawmen and try to make a coherent argument that isn’t a personal attack. while i know ampersand would never reprimand you for it, and i’m fairly used to it, it is still a rather childish thing to do, and completely degrades whatever argument you think you’re making.
This comment was written by jaketk.Report this comment to the moderators
August 29th, 2005 at 1:40 pm
jaket, why on earth would I do anything to help you divert this thread away from violence towards women, to violence against men, hmmm?
Your presense and diversion of this thread speaks volumes more than your individual words so we both know there is no “smoking gun” phrase to pull out. That’s not the way MRA’s work. But they nag about specific phrases to divert discussion about the issues pertaining to women, further into discussion of men’s issues.
Now, I’d like to give you more time, but unfortunately, our police chief(who incidently himself was investigated recently for misdemeanor DV and not charged) has come up with a new way to stall my FOI request and I have a quota on how many diversive efforts by men I will put up with in one day.
This comment was written by Radfem.Report this comment to the moderators
August 29th, 2005 at 1:41 pm
jaket, the problem is that alsis has no need to divert your argument because you are making it for her.
This comment was written by Radfem.Report this comment to the moderators
August 29th, 2005 at 4:17 pm
jaketk writes:
Alsis writes:
If men held all the power prior to feminism, how could women have accomplished anything without their support?
Actually if women accomplished feminist pro-female aims all on their own without the help of men — sweeping legislative reform and changed social bias in a matter of a few generations — it stands to reason that they are quite powerful. Particularly when you consider the fact that, in the last two centuries, men have been impotent in regards to creating or maintaining anything equivalently pro-male.
I wonder which it is, are western men uniquely charitable or are western women uniquely powerful?
This comment was written by typhonblue.Report this comment to the moderators
August 29th, 2005 at 4:57 pm
“If men held all the power prior to feminism, how could women have accomplished anything without their support? ”
—————————————-
This is a particularly well-loved strawman of the MRA groups….
“Particularly when you consider the fact that, in the last two centuries, men have been impotent in regards to creating or maintaining anything equivalently pro-male. ”
———————————–
Already created, and quite well maintained….even with the advances of feminists. Women have yet to create or maintain anything that is equivalently pro-female to the vast part of our society which still remains pro-male. And most of us won’t see that accomplished in our life time, unfortunately.
but it goes back to if men don’t have 100% of control, they have zero. All or nothing. And when they cry foul and want their “all” back, it’s amazing how successes made by feminists can lessen or even disappear. That is when you know, what gender still controls this society.
This comment was written by Radfem.Report this comment to the moderators
August 29th, 2005 at 5:13 pm
For one thing, if this were truly an equilarian world, we wouldn’t have men trying to twist a thread which is tied in some respect with misogyny into one that is focused on misandry. In fact, in most if not all feminist discourse or on any discourse which has to do with women’s issues on the Internet it is inevitable that some bored individual will come and drop the misandry term early on in the discussion.
I also find it funny when White men wail about how feminism is about the upper class White women, and then in the next breath, the truth comes out. They don’t give a damn if feminism excludes groups of women, THEY CARE THAT IT EXCLUDES THE INTERESTS OF MEN LIKE THEMSELVES.
This comment was written by Radfem.Report this comment to the moderators
August 29th, 2005 at 5:18 pm
Typhon, if it works both ways, what exactly is stopping you from starting a shelter for abused males ? Do you care about your brothers’ safety and well-being, or are you merely offended that a few more women can help other women increase their chances of being safe and well ? Never mind. radfem provided the answer quite nicely, I think. I doubt most feminists would feel personally diminished if the MRA whingers on this thread got themselves together and opened a shelter of their own somewhere. In fact, we’d be relieved that you’d have less time on your hands to come here and post this sort of self-serving tripe.
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
August 29th, 2005 at 6:02 pm
I wouldn’t. And I wouldn’t mind if this issue, but unfortunately, it arises most on threads addressing domestic violence that targets women, rather than on its own and it’s usually to hit feminists or women on the head for not focusing on the needs of men and their issues in a society which still allows and even favors men exercising the most power.
I have no desire to go to the Men’s Rights Forum, SYG or any other and lecture them on the issue of DV. I’m sure I would get banned soon after the entertainment value of flogging another feminist there died down. Yet, antifeminist men clearly feel that they have to come HERE and blame feminism for “failing” them. For one thing, in the middle of a thread where women are discussing violence against women, that’s tacky and it smacks of exercising male entitlement and privilage. The men who do that feign misunderstanding of what they are doing, but they still do it.
And actually, this kind of attitude tied in with a DV thread pertaining to women reminds us that no matter what good news there is about DV in some place, that it will probably never go away, until men don’t feel entitled to crash a discussion about issues pertaining to women, and making it all about their needs. After all, it’s men’s need to dominate and exert power, through physical, emotional, sexual, economical and psychological force to receive validation that they are truly men(because after all, if you can’t control your women, then you’re not really a man, you’re an assortment of female slurs or female terms used to slur men by calling them women) that runs through the threads of DV.
This comment was written by Radfem.Report this comment to the moderators
August 29th, 2005 at 6:05 pm
I didn’t say that although I know what you’re referring to when you say “gender-integrated golf courses.” I said that I support women playing in men’s tournaments and I do feel damned privileged to witness a phenomenal talent like Michelle Wie. Visit , a website made up entirely of men who feel similarly privileged. Here’s a quote from one of the first posts in the thread:
From that comment we might conclude that his patriarchal pig oppressor act can use some work. Or we might conclude that, like me, he feels privileged.
Can you show me a website where women are discussing Wie with even a molecular measure of the kind of insight it takes to appreciate Wie’s talents?
This is obviously a privilege enjoyed almost exclusively by men. Maybe we should add it to the MPC. How about this wording:
“Men get to appreciate the phenomenal talents of a female golfer but women are expected to worry about one little golf course in Georgia that exlcudes them and ignore the 15,000 American courses that welcome them.”
Note the phrase “are expected” is written in the passive voice so that it’ll fit neatly into the MPC. Guess what happens when you convert it into the active voice. What’s the subject? Who’s doing the expecting? That’s right…a feminist.
This comment was written by Pasatiempo.Report this comment to the moderators
August 29th, 2005 at 6:07 pm
Sorry, link didn’t work…beyond my computer skills or IQ, as yet undetermined. The website is http://www.golfclubatlas.com. The thread was back about July 20.
This comment was written by Pasatiempo.Report this comment to the moderators
August 29th, 2005 at 6:09 pm
radfem, it isn’t a diversion to ask you to demonstrate where i stated anything remotely close to the position you claim i have. that is simply a matter of clarification.
but i have another question. what makes you think that i am white? i certainly haven’t said that, so what would make you jump to that conclusion? secondly, when did i say i was a MRA? i certainly support men’s rights, as i do women’s rights, but i don’t join any political groups. i don’t like the idea of allowing someone else to make up my mind for me.
now, i don’t know how much you’ve read about second-wave feminism, but bell hooks did a fairly good job of demonstrating the racism she experienced from white feminists (i realize of course that this might surprise you, but this is one of the authors i read when i was around 11 or 12, along with dante, shakespheare, and my favorite author, anne rice). a great deal of feminism still remains in the hands of upper-class white women who aren’t really all that concerned with non-white and/or poor women. there has always been an element of racism in western feminism. to lay this at the feet of men is unfair.
This comment was written by jaketk.Report this comment to the moderators
August 29th, 2005 at 6:22 pm
Terrific, Pasa. Some men like to watch Wie play golf. I guess that proves that male privilege doesn’t exist and that women spend as much time beating the crap out of men as vice versa. Oh, and that feminists are selfish assholes for not throwing the doors of women’s shelters open to men. Thanks for clearing that up.
Pasa, you do know what a diversion is, don’t you ? You claim to have been reading this board for two years, so you must know how much it pisses off feminists when males show up and insist on pompous and irritating diversions of every last thread about particular feminist issues, right ?
You already said that you were excusing yourself from this thread, and you also loudly and proudly proclaimed that you don’t give a damn about DV. So why don’t you keep your word, lay off the diversions, and go back to lurking, eh ?
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
August 29th, 2005 at 6:36 pm
if you read the article, it goes into all elements of the murder rate, not just women. however, if one were to read the first couple of posts on this thread, one would assume the whole article was only about women. so you chose to ignore 2/3 of the article and only for on the parts about women. what i did was state that while feminism appears to have helped women, it did nothing for men, given that the murder rate for men, particularly poor men, doubled. so far, this has not been denied so much as it has been justified. had the article only been about women, i would not have stated anything. but the reaction to the article would be like you lamenting the deaths of the some 20 female soldiers in iraq, which is fine, but flat-out ignoring and then downplaying the other 1880 deaths because they’re male, which is not fine, and then justifying it by calling them aggressors and saying they should deal with it themselves, which is disgusting.
This comment was written by jaketk.Report this comment to the moderators
August 29th, 2005 at 6:55 pm
Perhaps that’s because only a dualist blockhead would argue that assisting women in abusive situations does nothing to help men. Fewer men end up growing up in abusive homes and perpetuating the cycle of spousal and child abuse when women and their children (some of whom are boys) can get out and find safety. Fewer women end up killing their abusive partners when they can get out and find safety.
To anyone but an entrenched misogynist, this would be a no-brainer.
What’s really going on here, it seems to me, is that you don’t want any woman or girl to be free and happy, because your boyhood was not free and happy. Excuse me if I don’t agree, and if I find your approach to be a piss-poor method of helping other men and boys.
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
August 29th, 2005 at 7:33 pm
I have no need to get in the last word. I don’t even mind if you take pot shots at my back as I’m walking out the door. You addressed me with a thought that interests me so I responded.
Alsis, you keep saying that while simultaneously using my stated indifference to that very subject to bait jaketk. You’re better than this.
My only issue is male privilege. It’s an issue that’s constantly brought up on this board whether it’s the original subject or not. I am not diverting.
I said it makes them privileged. Of course men are privileged. Everyone is privileged in an absolute sense. But when you say that Group A is privileged and make it obvious that it’s in reference to Group B then you are saying that Group A has more privileges than Group B.
You cited the MPC as proof of male privilege. The MPC is nothing but male privilege. Do you believe that men have all the privileges and women have none?
In post #77 Radfem described that very implication as “a particularly well-loved strawman of the MRA groups.”
So, Typhon and Radfem have a point. Feminists couldn’t have made the gains they’ve claimed unless women do have power and privileges, yet I’ve never heard a feminist describe them. I know you’re not willing to offer proof of overall male privilege but would you be willing to describe some of the female powers and privileges that apparently exist?
This comment was written by Pasatiempo.Report this comment to the moderators
August 29th, 2005 at 7:55 pm
jaketk said:
if you read the article, it goes into all elements of the murder rate, not just women. however, if one were to read the first couple of posts on this thread, one would assume the whole article was only about women. so you chose to ignore 2/3 of the article and only for on the parts about women. what i did was state that while feminism appears to have helped women, it did nothing for men, given that the murder rate for men, particularly poor men, doubled.
Actually, the article was all about women. The lead paragraph summarized everything most important about the article: the fact that fewer women are murdered because they are able to leave abusive relationships. Everything after that is filler and supporting details to put the lead in context. It is basic news writing.
You are trying to associate the fact that fewer women are murdered with the fact that murder rates for men have risen. One has nothing to do with the other.
By focusing on the supporting details given in the article about the overall murder rates for men, you are dismissing the main focus of the article. You are trying to shift the focus of the article, and this discussion, to men. The article was not about men, it was about women and how feminism has helped them.
This comment was written by mousehounde.Report this comment to the moderators
August 29th, 2005 at 8:22 pm
Pasa wrote:
Not really. I’m just trying hard to differentiate your schtick from Jaketik’s. One of you argues that women don’t care enough about men like him;That women’s first priority should be men like him, or else feminism is a fraud.
The other one argues that we have so many privileges ourselves and what we care about is of so little importance that it’s all just a fun game for you to pass the time with. What you both have in common is that you are both trolling and diverting. What you both have in common is that your tactics are obvious, overused, and unwelcome.
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
August 29th, 2005 at 8:40 pm
Pass the time, indeed. My screen name is Pasatiempo. Very good, Alsis. You got it all right except the word “just.” I’ve already explained that to you.
No, Alsis, you’re diverting as you did in the comment above. My only issue has been privilege, a common topic on this board and one first brought up in this very thread (post #19 to be exact) long before I came along.
I think the reason you don’t want to discuss male privilege is that feminists have nothing to gain and everything to lose by doing so. Male privilege is assumed in our society without critical analysis. The irony is how much feminists despise their greatest benefactor: chivalry.
Let me know if you’d like me to come back again like you did last time I left.
This comment was written by Pasatiempo.Report this comment to the moderators
August 29th, 2005 at 9:13 pm
Pasa wrote:
P-A, are you up ? I think we’ve got your next subject title right here, if you can re-type the title with a straight face. I know that it wouldn’t be easy for me.
“…For if the differences between men and women were fundamental, if woman was indeed intellectually inferior to man (that much, at least, seemed proven to progressive thinkers)… Chivalry, some decided, need not disappear, even if women were inferior creatures. Indeed, it was argued that they now needed man’s condescension more than ever…
“The endless [turn of the century, artistic] recurrence of fantasies of medieval encounters between strong, fair-hearted males and cringing women who needed to be rescued represented the symbolic continuance of the mid-century cult of the household nun. The child-mother, the saintly virgin, needed the strong arm of her newly-grown son… woman was either a wicked witch or a helpless child whose tender arms reached out not in desire but in sweet gratitude for the brave, pylonlike chivalric constancy of her magnificent knight. Not all women were swept off their feet by the lure of chivalry. As Rosa Mayreder, a brilliant turn-of analyst of the psychology of men’s fear of women, pointed out…
‘Gallantry, that frivolous and hypocritical attitude, bestows upon women the mere semblance of pre-eminence in order really to push her back into that place among children and minors which masculine lordship is determined she should occupy…’ ”
–Bram Djikstra, Idols of Perversity
Could this be yet another piece to the MRA puzzle ? Perhaps women shouldn’t help women in trouble because it upsets the natural order established by the chivalric code: Men determining which women are virtuous enough to merit rescue. Chivalry, after all, is what brought us “courtly love,” (the right of a nobleman to openly lust after another nobleman’s wife as long as he couched it in poetry and didn’t actually screw her), and the concept of peasant women being available to gratify the sexual desires of noblemen outside the bounds of marriage.
Yeah, that’s the ticket. Uh-huh.
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
August 29th, 2005 at 9:20 pm
Seems like jatek’s position is pretty simple.
1. Feminism professes to be egalitarian and to address gender based disadvantages.
2. Men are murdered more often then women.
3. Unless one can argue being murdered is a form of privilage, it appears to be a disadvantage.
4. Feminists don’t address this gender based disadvantage. Jatek then concludes that feminists claiming to be egalitarian is potentially hypocritical.
The feminists on this thread have made the following responce:
* Women are not obligated to help men with their disadvantages.
Jatek has retorted that if women are not obligated to help men then why are men obligated to help women?
Since a mainstay of feminist belief is that men *are* obligated to help women with their disadvantages, and when they don’t they should be condemned as part of “the patriarchy”, Jatek’s point is significant. Why shouldn’t women be hoisted on their own petard? If it is justified for women why not men?
A further feminist responce to this point has been:
* Men’s disadvantages are insignificant compared to women’s.
This ties into a responce to my question, namely that a vast part of our society is pro-male. (Which is the opposite of explaining how feminists made the advancements they did, if men hold all the power and are uncharitable to women.)
I have yet to find a compelling argument for this assertion and yes I have read and responded to the male privilage check list. I would like to know of any additional proofs that exist for this assertion.
In the interests of debate, would any feminist step up and provide the strongest proof they’ve developed that our society is vastly pro-male?
And for those who need a bit of a refresher on the basic nature of proofs… you can’t start by assuming what you’re proving.
This comment was written by typhonblue.Report this comment to the moderators
August 29th, 2005 at 9:35 pm
I rather think that posts #19 & #34 already covered this nicely. So did #50, and radfem’s comments as well.
Huh ? Typhon, are you also into this whole rah-rah-chivalry thing ? Your comment makes no sense. Just because a few hard-won gains are tentatively in place, it does not follow that men as a class are all swell people who were (or are) happy about women being able to get out of abusive homes.
Feminists did not passively await the charity and goodwill of men when they decided that DV shelters were needed by women. They worked hard, they dealt with hostility and rejection, outmoded laws, a huge demand for help without the means to satisfy more than a portion of all the women who needed help. Some gave up lucrative careers, some simply decided not to pursue those careers in the first place. All took on risks, both personal and financial. For you to claim that the very existence of progress negates the situation that first fed the need for progress is utterly absurd.
So you think that the article leading this thread is, what– fiction ? That the multitude of threads and feminist boards are all the product of some kind of mass delusion in the female mind ? Please. You want feminists to make you drink ? We can’t. We led you to the water already, all over this blog and all over the internet. If you want to shut your eyes and waste everyone’s time playing “NUH-UHHH” games, that’s your own problem.
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
August 29th, 2005 at 9:55 pm
Very good writing.
So, alsis, why don’t you go straight back to the beginning of this thread, just before the subject briefly became…
…
…when the subject was an article that was considered a cause for celebration among the feminists here. That article was written by DAVID. Now see if “P-A” can say with a straight face that DAVID placed a small reduction in female murders above a doubling in the rate of male murders for any reason other than c-h-i-v-a-l-r-y.
This comment was written by Pasatiempo.Report this comment to the moderators
August 29th, 2005 at 9:56 pm
Re: egalitarianism.
I’m not sure how the posts you point out address the main point. If women don’t have to help men, why should men have to help women. And if men don’t have to help women, then on what moral grounds can you condemn the patriarchy? Afterall it’s only acting out a perogative parallel to feminists’. And is just as morally justified in doing so.
As for mass delusions… they have existed in history and continue to exist to the present day. Historically they are the basis of the worst human attrocities and they all start with the idea that one group of people has wronged another and thus are unworthy of charity.
So, again, what I want is some sort of coherent proof that men do indeed oppress women. The existance of a belief in that proof is not enough.
This comment was written by typhonblue.Report this comment to the moderators
August 29th, 2005 at 10:14 pm
She’s right, ya know, alsis. So why did you refer to these posts?
We’ve already addressed these posts, alsis. These are the posts that make the assumptions, not offer proofs.
I’ve asked you to show me the proof of male privilege you say you have but you won’t do it. I asked you to merely tell me about some of the female privileges that Radfem says you have but you won’t. I offered a suggestion as to why you won’t and you rejected it all the while participating in a thread that celebrates that very thing.
Do you have anything else to share with me? Would you like to tell me once more how I only want to shut down women’s DV centers? Any more thoughts on chin hair?
This comment was written by Pasatiempo.Report this comment to the moderators
August 29th, 2005 at 10:33 pm
Pasatiempo… I’m sort of confused by your second to last paragraph. You want alsis to tell you about her female privilage?
This comment was written by typhonblue.Report this comment to the moderators
August 29th, 2005 at 11:02 pm
typhonblue Writes:
Pasatiempo… I’m sort of confused by your second to last paragraph. You want alsis to tell you about her female privilage?
It seems the trolls have taken over and are now discussing amongst themselves. Trolls trolling trolls. I like it.
This comment was written by mousehounde.Report this comment to the moderators
August 30th, 2005 at 6:36 am
[snort] Oh, mousehounde. You cynic. How can you say such a thing. ? Are you implying that Typhoid is behaving like some kind of disingenuous toady whose too lazy to move his/her mouse around this board and start clicking ?
You’re so mean, mousehounde.
Why, I’m absolutely positive that he/she’s so interested in truth or justice that he/she simply hasn’t yet noticed the helpful links along the right side of this board with such titles as “All Women Count” or “National Latina Institute For Reproductive Health.” In fact, I’m sure that he/she’s spent all night reading and getting edjucated and is now ready to turn over a new, un-trollish leaf.
Why, just imagine if there were a website somewhere that discussed— oh, I don’t know, the Super Bowl. Imagine if there had been hundreds and hundreds of threads, all clearly labelled, disecting in great detail various games and their actual outcomes. Imagine that a basic tenet of the board, stated over and over again for years, was that in 1974 Coach Cleats told his quarterback, Jerry Jones, to make such-and-such a maneuver following the halftime break and that this was a bad decision which ultimately cost the Tacoma Terriers their victory in the game. Thus the team owners were right to let Coach Cleats go.
Now imagine that a poster whom barely anyone knows from Adam/Eve suddenly pops in on the scene and starts –in a thread only peripherally related to the 1974 Superbowl– a monologue largely consisting of calls for him/her to be spoonfed proof of Coach Cleats’ badness as a coach. Imagine that said poster can produce only scinitillating dialogue when told that Coach Cleats’ badness is an established fact consisting of faux-intellectual variations of “Nuh-UHHHH !!!” Imagine if requests to go read the dozens of links relating to this subject also produced a hanger-on poster who could do nothing but parrot variation of “Nuh-UHHHH !!!”
Surely, mousehounde, you aren’t implying that the latter such person would be at worst an obvious troll, and at best a lazy boor who clearly had little else to do but suck up to Troll No. 1. That’s really, really mean. The least you could do for Typhoid and her buddy Pasa is offer them Camille Paglia’s cell phone number or that invite to the next IWF High Tea that you’ve been hoarding. Shame on you.
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
August 30th, 2005 at 8:17 am
Anti-feminists love playing the “prove oppression exists” or “prove male privilege exists” games, because there’s no single, agreed-upon definition of “male privilege” or “oppression” that MRAs have to stick to, allowing them to implicitly or explicitly insist on definitions that cannot be proved. This is, of course, a variation on “assuming what you’re proving” - they create or insist on definitions that implicitly support their assumption that male privilege doesn’t exist, and refuse to argue on any other grounds.
It’s relatively easy to prove that the marketplace discriminates against women (albeit probably not to the satisfaction of extremist anti-feminists, but to most people’s satisfaction); that men occupy a vastly disproportional number of the powerful positions in government and industry; that in typical US society, women are more subject to severe male violence than vice-versa; etc. For that matter, a bunch of the items on the “male privilege list” can and have been empirically shown in academic studies.
However, since there is no agreement that all of that adds up to either male privilege or to oppression, none of those things “prove” male privilege or oppression in the eyes of men’s rights advocates. Nothing ever can. This game is rigged, and feminists are better off not playing it.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
August 30th, 2005 at 8:25 am
mousehounde Writes:
if this is in fact the case, then it would appear that you are admitting that feminism did nothing to aid any of the poor males in the neighborhoods in which these shelters and services were provided for women. i say that because the article goes in-depth into the murder rate of men, which has no zero revelance if the article is purely about women, and explains some of the methods in which these young men are killed.
the lead paragraph does indeed focus on women, but that’s because it’s better news. in the following paragraph it is immediately explained that all is not well. that would imply that the lead paragraph was designed more to grab your attention rather than give you information.
This comment was written by jaketk.Report this comment to the moderators
August 30th, 2005 at 8:46 am
ampersand writes:
the majority of consumers in this country are women. most advertising is spent on attracting women. so unless you’re speaking about women going to a car dealership, what marketplace discrimination are you speaking of?
most of the men who occupy powerful positions do so with their wealth and who they know. in most instances, the average working-class man has no means of altering that and risks losing his job if he questions it. so why are you blaming the average man for the power that the insanely wealthy exert?
i would love to see one of these academic studies that shows that the most severe violence commited in our country is done against women by men. the greater instances of male-male violence and murder would suggest otherwise, so i am very interesting in any study you can provide that would show that men brutalize women more severely than other men.
it’s interesting that you would rather change the subject and not directly address any of the points, but instead dismiss them without any evidence, except for saying that male privilege exists… because you wrote a checklist ( it also appears to ignore the fact that about 30% of this country’s males are minorities and have no privileges). this is akin to the christian right stating that homosexuality is wrong, and upon being questioned about it, “proving” that is wrong by saying, “it’s in the bible.”
This comment was written by jaketk.Report this comment to the moderators
August 30th, 2005 at 10:03 am
Why shouldn’t car dealerships count? Clearly, when women go to a car dealership, use identical negotiating techniques and get charged more, that’s discrimination. Are you suggesting that it’s not discrimination, and should be ignored?
But testers have also shown that when an identical shirt, except for which side the buttons are on, is brought for dry-cleaning, the “women’s” shirt gets a higher charge. And, of course, there’s a lot of evidence of discrimination in the marketplace by employers; for instance, the study that showed that women’s chances of being hired to play in an orchestra increased significantly once orchestras switched to “blind” auditions, so the people hiring didn’t know the sex of the person auditioning.
Oppressions and privileges aren’t separate; they interact. We don’t have to say that either male privilege or class privilege exists; they both exist at the same time.
If you want to argue that being wealthy gives wealthy people a lot of privileges the poor don’t get, naturally I’d agree. But that doesn’t negate the fact that, along with other factors (like being white and being wealthy), being male gives people a better chance of achieving a position of power.
I don’t “blame” the average man; any “blame” cast is a straw man you’re attacking, not anything I’ve said. In the past, I’ve explicitly argued that men as a class should not be blamed.
I wrote, “in typical US society, women are more subject to severe male violence than vice-versa.” In response, you wrote:
Either deliberately or through accidental misreading, you’re distorting what I said. I didn’t say “the most severe violence is done against women by men”; I said that there’s more severe male-on-female violence than there is severe female-on-male violence. For example, men rape women more often than vice-versa, and men murder wives and girlfriends more often than vice-versa. This is well documented, but if you honestly need me to, I could cite some statistics for you.
As for the rest of your post, I addressed the “prove male privilege exists” red herring in my previous post, which is the main point I wanted to address - and since people have been talking about exactly that for a while now, it’s dishonest of you to claim that I was changing the subject. There may be some other things I didn’t address, but I’m not obliged to address every little thing you bring up.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
August 30th, 2005 at 11:41 am
My one comment about race on this thread, was in general, not necessarily pertaining to yourself, jaket, or I would have included you among them.
Shocked about your reading list, nope, nothing really shocks me much anymore. The only thing that would shock me is if individuals like yourself could actually participate on a thread addressing women’s issues without jumping in, with “what about the men?” or “feminism has totally failed men”. But you’d have to check your gender privilage at the door, and you can’t do that. It’s almost like an addiction.
What’s really tickles the funny bone is when antifeminists like yourself, walz into a discussion on violence against women to play these silly reindeer games. By doing so, while denying your male privilage with words, you are shouting it out through your actions. And if you’re a show, not tell kind of person, it’s impossible to ignore it.
alsis, female privilage is wet tee-shirt nights at local bars…Women get FREE DRINKS…Men have to pay. And something about toilet seats, but I can’t remember at the moment exactly what the privilage is. Maybe, it’s that since women have to wait soooo much longer at public venues to use the toilets, that they can spend so much more leisure time on their intellectual development rather than rush in to the bathroom, get their business done, and rush out with nary a spare moment to reflect in between.
This comment was written by Radfem.Report this comment to the moderators
August 30th, 2005 at 12:34 pm
Amp’s points:
1. Men commit more violence against women then women commit against men.
Men are also the majority of the people trying to prevent and punish the injury of men by women.
Statistically black people are more likely to due violence to white people then vice versa… so tell me, do black people have “black privilage?” –Source “Highlights from 20 Years of Surveying Crime Victims NCJ-144525″, Department of Justice. (Unfortunately I couldn’t find an electronic copy, but you can order a paper copy.) Interestingly enough white supremicist groups have used this finding to “prove” that black people are waging a racist and oppressive war against white people.
2. Women suffer marketplace discrimination.
I acknowledge that women pay more for drycleaning and haircuts, and apparently cars–although I would argue that drycleaning and hairdressing are more complicated processes for women then for men, due to the variety and complexity of women’s clothes and hairstyles thus serving women as a population requires a higher overhead. And as for cars… I assume haggling is some element of purchase, and men are, apparently more likely to say something like, “Can you get me a better price.” Since salespersons aren’t obligated to make things cheaper, it’s up to the customer to get that discount. Unless we want to pass a law fixing prices… which might be a liability for women in terms of insurance.
Anyway, moving on, I mentioned this once on hugo’s blog… Women make the majority of purchasing decisions in almost every consumer catagory except for : men’s clothing, alcohol, gifts.
Which means that women exert more influence on our consumer culture then men via the purchase of goods. In essence women determine our society’s cultural landscape, the majority of commercials, tv programmes, movies, etc. are geared towards them, our last remaining public spaces are constructed to please them, etc.
In a world where malls are the new polis, and consumers the new governing body, this represents considerable social power.
Yet we don’t hear about the “spending gap”.
3. Women are less likely to be hired by orchestras.
I did a search on that interesting factoid.
Here’s what I found:
“In the population of auditioners, we’re 95% sure that women were between 2.46% less likely than men and .36% more likely than men to be hired.”
Usually 5% is considered the cut off point for statistical significance.
BTW, just as an aside. You never responded to my question about what constitutes a “totality of oppression”, absent government and media. Now that you’re in your own space, could you explain?
This comment was written by typhonblue.Report this comment to the moderators
August 30th, 2005 at 12:43 pm
I believe some of the issue here is this… the “anti-feminists” are looking to the feminists to describe a causal factor for men’s power. Not just examples of discrimination, which can be found for men and women. (And when we look at
To explain…
Let’s take a male infant. At what point during his growth does his patriarchal privilage emerge and allow him to benefit himself? And what is the causal component of this power? In other words, what causes it and what gives it it’s potency?
This, I believe, is Amp’s totality of oppression.
This comment was written by typhonblue.Report this comment to the moderators
August 30th, 2005 at 1:04 pm
To follow your analogy, then, I go to such a website and DO NOT ask for proof of his badness. I agree that his decision in 1974 was bad (as I admit that male privilege exists). Instead, I point out that they are basing their overall conclusion of his badness on a single incident (or several, for that matter). I ask them for reasons why they believe, based on his entire coaching career, that he was a bad coach. If they can’t do that, I ask them if they can cite any instances in which he made good decisions.
This is how they would respond if they responded like you (that is, to continue your analogy). “You must be an NBA fan [and, therefore, bad]. You just want to shut down football stadiums. You’re just like that other poster asking about the 1965 Rose Bowl who refuses to take the correct point of view. It isn’t our job to take care of NBA fans. Trolls, trolls, trolls.”
If this is how you think they’d act, then you don’t know sports fans. You chose this analogy.
I keep hearing that, apparently, anyone who questions male privilege is an MRA. Most of the time, between feminist boards and MRA boards, I see two playpens and one nursery. I also haven’t proscribed any definition. Make up your own.
It’s a small world, that nursery. But you are on the WWW! How much more obvious could it have been that the Ms boards closed down because feminists had become embarrassing to feminism? Ever consider the lurker-to-poster ratio here? There’re lots and lots of them and they’re watching you Radfem. Is this the way you want to portray feminism to the teeming masses?
This comment was written by Pasatiempo.Report this comment to the moderators
August 30th, 2005 at 1:11 pm
did i not say “unless you’re speaking about women going to a car dealership?” would that not imply that i agreed that there was discrimination?
so if they both exist at the same time, and essentially you believe that male privilege is the greater of the two, then logically speaking, shouldn’t there be more powerful black men? certainly two elements of discrimination can exist. the problem is that “privileges” often to not extend to all parties. clearly all men do not have these privileges. they cannot throw their maleness around and get their way. so it would seem, much like every other “privilege,” that it really only extends to a small, select group of people, not everyone.
that would appear to contradict what has been said on this thread, and also the notion of “the patriarchy” and male “privilege.” if you are not blaming men, i.e. holding them responsible, then who is actually responsible for their (the patriarchy and male privilege) existence, or more importantly why would you even make an issue out of it? certainly someone would have had to have caused this in the first place, right? and if men are to blame, then why throw it in their faces?
actually, you really didn’t address it all. you merely stated it does exist, backed it up with your own checklist, and then dismissed any questions about it as MRA nonsense. to say that it is a red herring is disingenuous because the point of contention is that “male privilege” is not in agreement. we don’t agree that men always have the better deal, so asking for proof this is hardly a red herring. no one is attempting to dodge your proof. they are simply demonstrating that your proof does not hold up to scrunity, which you choose to ignore, as with the fact that minority men have no real power or privilege.
This comment was written by jaketk.Report this comment to the moderators
August 30th, 2005 at 3:06 pm
“Ever consider the lurker-to-poster ratio here? There’re lots and lots of them and they’re watching you Radfem. Is this the way you want to portray feminism to the teeming masses? ”
—————————————–
Omigoddess, LOL….
I’m just one person, but if people want to watch, then at least as far as this discussion goes, that’s fine…
jaket, minority men have no power and privilage. Do you have any expectations among the more white and privilaged members of your gender in terms of how that will be addressed, OR do you expect women to handle a situation that in large part, one race of men is manifesting on others. Is blaming the oppression of men of color on feminism, a way for many of these culpable White men to dodge responsibility for the fact that patriarchy has not treated all of its men equally?
This comment was written by Radfem.Report this comment to the moderators
August 30th, 2005 at 5:22 pm
radfem says:
:D
I, too, am deeply moved and humbled at the notion that the eyes of the entire WWW are upon us. If only someone had warned me yesterday, I could’ve done someting with my hair, maybe boughts some new lipstick, etc…
OTOH, if Tryptophan hadn’t showed up, I would never have learned all that stuff about Frank Lloyd Wright’s alternate-universe love life. :p
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
August 30th, 2005 at 5:52 pm
When on earth did I say male privilege is the greater of the two? I don’t sit around ranking race, sex and class privileges, dude. Again, you’re making up strawmen.
Okay, clearly you didn’t understand what I said. Let me try again:
I stated it exists. I stated that it’s impossible to prove, because logically you can’t prove “X” when there’s no consensus about what “X” means empirically. I stated that I could prove individual issues, including some on the “male privilege” checklist, but I acknowleged that proving individual issues is not the same as proving “male privilege” as a whole. And I didn’t say that “any questions” were MRA nonsense; I said that this particular demand, to prove something that lacks a consensus definition and so can’t be proven, is nonsense..
I didn’t deny that the existence of “male privilege” is in contention; also, I never said men “always” have the better deal.
I think sexism is a system that disadvantages both men and women, and that it’s quite common for men to be screwed over. There are obvious cases where men don’t have the better deal, such as if you look at the narrow issue of workplace accident deaths. To pick another example, a boy who is constantly beaten up in school because he can’t live up to expectations of masculinity could not be said to have a better deal. (However, I don’t think there’s any hope for that boy from MRAs; I think his best hope is feminism.)
On the whole, I think that the gender-roles system gives men an advantage; especially when the male advantage is combined with other advantages, such as being white, straight, ablebodied, wealthy, talented, etc. However, I’ve never claimed that there aren’t exceptions; I’ve never claimed that men aren’t harmed by sexism; I’ve never claimed that someone who is black, poor, disabled, gay and male rules the world or whatever bullshit it is you’re attributing to me; and I’ve never claimed that society as a whole can be understood with reference purely to sex, ignoring race, class, and other factors.
Saying that men (as a whole) aren’t to blame doesn’t contradict the idea of male privilege, or patriarchy. Neither male privilege or patriarchy are conspiracy theories, in which men are advantaged because they sit around plotting to be advantaged in smoke-filled rooms. I don’t think that “someone” had to start it (you’re sounding like you believe in intelligent design); things evolved over time, out of conditions that no longer apply in modern society. If “someone” did start it and should be blamed, that “someone” - whoever they were - has been dead for thousands of years and is long past being blamed.
I don’t think anyone’s to blame for how they were born, or conditions that existed before their birth. I’ve almost certainly been advantaged by my race, my sex and my class. In job interviews, it’s likely I’ve been given an advantage over equally-qualified or better candidates who were non-white, or female, or spoke with an “uneducated” accent, or some combination of the above. That isn’t my fault; blaming me for a system of race, sex and class advantage that existed generations before I was born would be silly.
Where I disagree with you is that you conflate blame and responsibility (e.g., ” if you are not blaming men, i.e. holding them responsible”), where I make a distinction. I am not personally to blame for all the ills of society. That doesn’t mean that I don’t bear responsibility for trying to improve those ills. And the more advantaged you are by society, the greater the responsibility for trying to improve it, in my view.
Yes, that means I think men with power - even if it’s only a little power - have a responsibility to try to improve things. But I also think the same thing of women with power. I think people should do what they can to make things better.
Finally, I don’t agree that minority men have no real power or privilege; compared with similarly-situated minority women, they sometimes do. I do think that to intelligently examine this question, we’d have to admit it’s not simple and talk about the ways that different kinds of power and privilege come to bear (or don’t come to bear) in different situations. In my view, anyone who says that minority men are NEVER advantaged by their sex is being as over-simplistic as someone who says they are ALWAYS advantaged by their sex, regardless of how sexism interacts with racism. Both views are too simplistic to be true.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
August 30th, 2005 at 5:52 pm
I thought of a better way to put this.
When pathologists are in the process of identifying a new disease, they start with a set of symptoms, identify a causal agent (virus, bacteria, etc.) and then create a causal hypothesis to connect the two. For instance how does virus X create symptom Y.
To apply this to the feminist notion of patriarchy… Men are the causal agent (obviously), male privilage and female disadvantage are the symptoms but what is the causal hypothesis?
By what mechanism do men create the symptoms of patriarchy? In other words, what avenue do men have to influence others, that women don’t have?
Quite a few of you are giving me the idea that you hold great distaste for discussing the foundational aspects of feminist theory. (Sort of reminds me of christians actually, don’t like discussing the subject they are, apparently, most fond of.) I would think there must be some eager young feminist scholar chomping at the bit to be the one to discover the “causal hypothesis” to great and lasting acclaim. Or perhaps it has already been discovered and I haven’t come across it yet.
This comment was written by typhonblue.Report this comment to the moderators
August 30th, 2005 at 6:00 pm
Amp, you say that on the whole men(causal agent) are advantaged over women. (Symptom)
Advantages result from some sort of influence(causal hypothesis). Therefore men have access to an influence that women do not have access to.
What is that influence?
This comment was written by typhonblue.Report this comment to the moderators
August 30th, 2005 at 6:22 pm
No, it’s more like I’ve absorbed a great deal of feminist theory over the years, and it’s a great deal more sophisticated than you’re imagining. Listening to you talk about what you imagine theory is, is like talking to someone about comics who is convinced: 1) That they, personally, have a highly sophisticated understanding of cartooning and 2) Garfield is an important and influential comic strip.
This blog is not intended to explain why Garfield isn’t important to people who think they already know everything about comics - and especially not when that person is rather condesending. Go get your basic education somewhere else.
Beginning feminist theory is readiliy available, for people who have sincere interest. I recommend bell hooks for a basic grounding in liberal feminism, and Allan Johnson for a highly readable introduction to radical feminism.
If you’re particulary interested in what influences my thinking, read Susan Okin and Sandra Bem, as well.
One thing all four of these books have in common: None of them will say anything as asinine as “Men are the causal agent (obviously).” My problem with you isn’t your ignorance; my problem is that you don’t know you’re ignorant, so you confidently state things about what feminists believe that relatively few feminists actually believe. It’s as if your grouding in feminist theory both began and ended with reading “The S.C.U.M. Manifesto” or maybe an anti-feminist quote page.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
August 30th, 2005 at 6:29 pm
What is the causal agent of patriarchy? If it’s not men, then who or what?
This comment was written by typhonblue.Report this comment to the moderators
August 30th, 2005 at 6:31 pm
BTW, if the question is so basic, why not answer it?
This comment was written by typhonblue.Report this comment to the moderators
August 30th, 2005 at 6:42 pm
Where did I say “the question is so basic”? I don’t think the question is so basic (although some would diagree with me). I think the question is highly complex and difficult, and made more so by the fact that patriarchy goes back to before written history began.
My problem with you is that you seem to be insisting that everything must be simplistic, when the reality isn’t simple at all. Not unlike the standoff we had on SYG.
What makes you assume that patriarchy has a single causal agent? Do you think anti-Semitism has a single causal agent, for example? Does the current situation of the Kurds have a single causal agent?
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
August 30th, 2005 at 6:58 pm
Well, we could start with one and work our way up to more.
This comment was written by typhonblue.Report this comment to the moderators
August 30th, 2005 at 7:17 pm
I believe the causal agent for anti-semitism is the anti-semite. Likewise with the Kurd’s situation, the causal agent are muslims.
For the most part in situations of persecution you can point to a group of people, defined by the beliefs that they hold and/or their ethnic background, and say, these people are the ones who are causing harm. I have yet to hear of oppression or persecution against a group of people which wasn’t perpetrated by another, definable, group of people. I can’t see a situation of organized persecution arising from random acts of random people with no connection to eachother.
Patriarchy inevitably has to be the result of the individual choices of a group of people working within some sort of consensus. Who are these people? Why do they hold the beliefs they do? And how do they come to hold influence over others?
This comment was written by typhonblue.Report this comment to the moderators
August 30th, 2005 at 7:21 pm
BTW, I was unclear when I said we could start with one and work our way up. I meant we could start with one causal hypothosis, one way patriarchy (whatever group of people patriarchy is composed of) enforces men’s privilages and women’s disadvantages, and then find others.
I imagine this will be far easier once we figure out how to define the group of people that comprise the patriarchy.
This comment was written by typhonblue.Report this comment to the moderators
August 31st, 2005 at 4:19 am
Nothing says male privelege like three trolls spending all their time whinging about feminism,after one of them has declared it to be a mere pass time for his arrogant ass.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I could speculate on the connection between inane and obtuse trolls and that high male murder rate but I won’t.
Alsis, I don’t drink beer. I think we need champagne.
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
August 31st, 2005 at 9:45 am
Yes but… I’m not a man so I can’t have male privilage.
This comment was written by typhonblue.Report this comment to the moderators
August 31st, 2005 at 9:59 am
[Deleted by Amp.]
This comment was written by Jessy.Report this comment to the moderators
August 31st, 2005 at 10:17 am
i’ll ask this again: what makes you think i’m white?
read my post again. i said minority men have no power and privilege, not that it was feminism’s fault. and i find it particularly disrespectful to pretend that women have been and are the only ones handling race issues, and extremely offensive to suggest that white women haven’t played an extremely important role in the oppression of minority men.
This comment was written by jaketk.Report this comment to the moderators
August 31st, 2005 at 10:23 am
I’m quite certain you can. I’m sure you can speculate on the connection between patriarchy and Life, the Universe and Everything and every single detail within except the connections that prove the most basic assumption of feminism.
In today’s information-intense world, those trying to sway public opinion try to make their message as simple as possible. Perhaps feminism needs to work on this. In any event, the Male Privilege Checklist doesn’t seem complex at all. Why is the other side of it so complex?
If you’ll recommend a single book that’ll come closest to answering my question I’ll head straight on over to Amazon.
This comment was written by Pasatiempo.Report this comment to the moderators
August 31st, 2005 at 10:33 am
Pasa, could you clarify for me precisely what your question is?
Typhonblue:
Oh, I didn’t realize that you were looking for shallow tautologies. Okay, I think the causal agent for sexism is sexists. Sexism, in turn, is the causal agent for male centrism, which is the term I prefer to use instead of “patriarchy,” if we’re gonna get technical.
I just don’t see any of that - what you said or what I just said - as useful or interesting. Yes, anti-semitism is caused by anti-semites; but that’s an inane statement, unless we can also say something about what makes anti-semites anti-semitic.
Nearly all Kurds are Muslims themselves - are you saying that the Kurds are the causal agents? Furthermore, not all non-Kurdish Muslims have anything to do with the Kurd’s problems. Some non-Kurdish Muslims are even advocates for Kurdish rights. Are they causal agents of Kurdish oppression, in your view?
I guess you could say that “those muslims with anti-Kurdish views are the causal agent,” but that’s another tautology.
Again, I don’t understand how putting things in simplistic terms is supposed to be helpful. As your comments about anti-semitism and Kurds demonstrate, being simplistic usually means being useless or wrong.
I’m curious, as well, what you think the causal agent of racism is.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
August 31st, 2005 at 11:42 am
Ampersand,
You are the same reasoning used by Christians to “prove” the existence of God. Male privilege is not an element of faith. You cannot simply state that it exists but that you can’t prove it. The lack of consensus of the definition of male privilege is a strawman. Clearly we know what it means. The actual point of contention is as I stated, whether it actually exists in the all-encompassing manner in which it has been claimed to, which you apparently now disagree with it.
Can you show me where I said you claimed that someone who is black, poor, disabled, gay and male rules the world? If you are focusing on factors, then that would imply that there is not an overall “privilege.” Certainly being male would help in some instances, but the same is true of being female.
Also, can you show me where I claimed male privilege and the patriarchy are conspiracy theories? I can find where I said “clearly all men do not have these privileges. they cannot throw their maleness around and get their way. so it would seem, much like every other “privilege,” that it really only extends to a small, select group of people, not everyone.” But I cannot find anything I have stated remotely close to your strawman.
What definition of “blame” are you using? It must be one that is different from the one I am familiar with because it means 1. To hold responsible; 2. To find fault with; censure; 3. To place responsibility for (something): blamed the crisis on poor planning. If you are saying men are responsible for it, you are indeed blaming them for it. And if you say that the more advantaged you are in society, the greater your responsibility to improve it, would this not also apply to feminists, who clearly have a political advantage? Would this not mean that feminists would then have a responsibility to help everyone, not just women? (Personally I do not think it is feminists’ responsibility as the goal of feminism appears to be a shift in power rather than the creation of equality between the genders.)
By the way, I find it interesting that even as you admit that men can face discrimination, you feel the need to immediately diminish it by calling it “narrow.”
This comment was written by jaketk.Report this comment to the moderators
August 31st, 2005 at 11:59 am
Jaket, I didn’t make that assumption. You did. And that’s indicative of certain things in a poster.
Read the above again, especially the first sentence. Feel free, however, to continue to dodge the question. I just put it out there to give you the option of answering it, not mandating that you must do so.
Beer, champagne, either is fine, just make sure either comes with plenty of popcorn and kazoos…
This comment was written by Radfem.Report this comment to the moderators
August 31st, 2005 at 12:01 pm
ooops, my quote disappeared! It wasn’t the stuff that’s blockquoted in the above quote, it was something I had posted which made it clear that I was not assigning Jaket a racial classification, despite his protests that I was doing so.
This comment was written by Radfem.Report this comment to the moderators
August 31st, 2005 at 12:13 pm
Trippy, never fear, you can be a woman and still work enthusiastically to reinforce male privilege. Just look at Margaret Thatcher and Ayn Rand. I gather from your own writings and tone that you’ve dog-eared at least a few chunks of Randian babble in your spare time.
Ginmar, it’s a toss-up whether champagne or trolls give me a worse headache. But I’ll stake you to a bottle, no sweat. I have it on good authority here that as long as woman-focussed marketing exists, there’s no male privilege and to say otherwise would be downright churlish. What woman wouldn’t– given half a chance– gladly submit to battering for the chance to go on a big shopping spree afterwards ? Hell, it sounds like it could be a great reality show. After our drinks, let’s ring up LA and see if we can’t find one of Murdoch’s flunkies to pitch it to.
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
August 31st, 2005 at 1:28 pm
I suppose my question is, where is the proof that, considering all privileges that men and women enjoy, men enjoy more. If no book you can think of answers that concisely, then recommend the book that you think will best persuade me to your point of view. I’ll read it with the best blank slate mindset that someone who has lived long and seen can muster. Just one, please.
This comment was written by Pasatiempo.Report this comment to the moderators
August 31st, 2005 at 3:57 pm
Amp,
I believe you misunderstood the term “causal agent”. I was using it to refer to an entity not a motivation or context.
But I’m glad you’ve finally admitted there is a group of people responsible for male-centrism. Namely sexists.
Now, please correct me if I’m wrong, but here’s how I see the situation:
Sexists hold a belief that informs their treatment of individuals of a certain gender, this results in the oppression of that gender. That belief, simply stated, is that women are less valuable then men. The rest of their sexist belief system is an extension of that core belief.
In order for a society to be sexist a critical mass of people must hold sexist beliefs and act on them in a way that affects others. And in order for a society to remain sexist that critical mass of people must be able to influence the next generation to carry on their sexist beliefs. After all, sexists are not born, they are made.
Therefor it behooves us to examine *how* sexists are made.
I assume that sexism is taught. The question is, when and where?
You say that men are not the only ones responsible for sexism, therefore women are also sexist and teaching sexism to others. (Unless men are the ones manipulating women into sexism, in which case women’s involvement in sexism is coerced, against their will, and once again the problem lies with men. Which can’t be, because you have said it isn’t just men’s fault.)
That means there are, roughly, two spheres of influence a sexist works in. One is female dominated, child care, early education, nursing, etc. And the other is male, politics, corperations, media. After all a sexist society divides men and women’s influence along those lines.
What I’m curious about at the moment is how male sexists, in the domain of politics, corperations and media, influence others to value men more then women, to become sexists?
(As an aside, I quite like your hereville comic, particularly the character of the Stepmother, when are you going to update it?)
This comment was written by typhonblue.Report this comment to the moderators
August 31st, 2005 at 4:34 pm
radfem, you are correct in that you did not question my race. however, before you suggest that i am dodging your question, do recall that you explicitedly refused to answer my questions: can you show me where i asked feminists to drop what they were doing to focus on the needs of men? or more specifically, can you show me any instances in which money has been taken from women’s shelters to open shelters and services for men?
i think that is only fair that if i am to answer your question, you should answer mine.
This comment was written by jaketk.Report this comment to the moderators
August 31st, 2005 at 4:59 pm
ampersand, i wanted to address this separately as it has little to do with our other conversation, if you don’t mind.
firstly, i am a skinny guy, short, little muscle, and i read novels (mostly political and historical texts), i write, i play video games, and i have zero interest in sports or sitting around and talking about women (which might surprise you). so i would say that i don’t fit the high-school definition of a “man.” certainly i was picked on in high-school, especially since i didn’t speak that much and rarely fought back. and yet, i still prefer being around other males. i have no dislike or serious distrust of males, and honestly my interests are more in line with guys who are called “geeks” and “nerds.” so i have no place within feminism as i am not ashamed of my masculinity, and i have no desire to behave in a less “masculine” or more “feminine” way. (i put them in quotes because i do not personally find emotions and sympathy to be “feminine.” i do not think there is anything wrong with expressing them, though i often do not, so long as one has control over them.)
secondly, it would be rather silly to base your assumptions about masculinity on the actions of high-school teenagers. they are not men, and don’t know what it is to be a man. so while it was painful and cruel, they are not men, and masculinity is far more complex than high-school antics. again, here it would seem that feminism offers men few choices. masculinity is whittled down to something that is base, unrefined, brutish, and undesireable. if one does not conform to the feminist view of masculinity (that one should be androgynous at the least, and more feminine at best), then one is deemed “misogynistic.” for instance, i have been told that i am a misogynist because i prefer hanging out with an all-male group.
thirdly, given the response on this thread when i mentioned my abuse, i can hardly see how feminism would be better for a boy who went through hell in school unless he prefered the company of women. no one wants to be shamed or made the scapegoat. and that is something i have yet to see happen in the men’s movement. i have seen feminists do this to men and boys, from my experiences in foster care to my experiences with rape centers. i do not think the best hope for a boy would a) over-simpiflying masculinity, b) demonizing masculinity, or c) going to women to understand what it is to be a man. one of the foudning principles of feminism is that men cannot define who and what women are. i would say that would apply in the reverse as well.
This comment was written by jaketk.Report this comment to the moderators
August 31st, 2005 at 5:16 pm
You didn’t come in for disparaging remarks from feminists because you were abused. You came in for disparaging remarks because you’ve deliberately posted antagonistic and anti-woman comments since your arrival here.
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
September 1st, 2005 at 6:49 am
they are not men, and don’t know what it is to be a man.
Can you please tell us what it is “to be a man.” How old does one need to be before one knows “what it is to be a man?”
so i have no place within feminism as i am not ashamed of my masculinity, and i have no desire to behave in a less “masculine” or more “feminine” way.
This sentence demonstrates that you know absolutely nothing about feminism. Please do some reading (several books have been recommended) or take a class before continuing to make comments on something of which you have no knowledge of even the most basic concepts.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
September 1st, 2005 at 8:29 am
alsis, isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black? “feminist” isn’t synonymous with “woman”. that’s like saying that because i don’t support christianity i’m anti-religion. that makes no sense as the two are not the same.
squid, since you did not find any issue with my comment about men defining womanhood, why would you take issue with my comment about women defining manhood?
if this is not true, then why is it that feminists are consistently “deconstructing” masculinity? why is it that feminism focuses on creating a “new” masculinity if it is accepting of the old one? more importantly, why is it that these new forms of feminist-based masculinity always includes a degradation of tradtionally acceptable qualities of masculinity as “repressive and dominating”" in men, but “progressive and liberating” in women?
i took two gender studies courses. i’ve also read several of bell hook’s books, susan faludi, andrea dworkin, and betty friedman to name a few. interestingly enough, i attended an irish catholic high-school, studied the religion, read christian authors, read the bible, or rather parts of it, have an interest in old christian texts and eastern forms of christianity such gnoticism, and i have attended mass with my best friend who is very catholic. yet, i’m not a catholic or a christian. but i do have an understanding christianity, of both the positive and the negative view. simply because i do not agree with it does not mean i do not understand it, which appears to be what you think.
if i might ask, what men’s movement books have you read? criticism of feminism? books on the abuse of males, whether as adults or children?
This comment was written by jaketk.Report this comment to the moderators
September 1st, 2005 at 9:00 am
What do you mean by “what it is to be a man?”
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
September 1st, 2005 at 10:18 am
i thought that was fairly clear. it means what it is like to experience life as a man.
This comment was written by jaketk.Report this comment to the moderators
September 1st, 2005 at 11:34 am
Nope, wasn’t clear to me at all. It seems to be a strange definiton. “To know what it is to be a man” means to be a man? Okay, maybe the proper question would be, what is your definition of a man?
I think it is a very weird thing that you are saying when you write:
secondly, it would be rather silly to base your assumptions about masculinity on the actions of high-school teenagers. they are not men, and don’t know what it is to be a man.
It seems that you are saying that you can only know what it is to be a man if you are (or have been) a man. Do I have that right? If so, how is that relevant to what Amp wrote?
At what age would you say that one can “know what it is to be a man?” And are you saying that high-school teenagers cannot be defined as “masculine?” Are you saying that only a man can be masculine? For that matter, what is your definition of masculine?
Maybe that is where all this confusion about what you’re trying to say is coming from.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
September 1st, 2005 at 11:45 am
i took two gender studies courses.
and on and on.
It’s too bad you didn’t actually learn anything in all your studies of feminism.
When you say, “so i have no place within feminism as i am not ashamed of my masculinity…” you show that you don’t grasp any of the basic concepts of feminism. I’m not ashamed of my masculinity, either, but I believe that I do have a place within feminism.
Shame or pride over how much you fit into a culturally defined gender role has nothing to do with whether or not you can be a feminist. Demanding that people conform to rigid gender roles, however, does have something to do with whether or not there is a place for you in feminism. Can you see the important difference between those two concepts?
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
September 1st, 2005 at 12:08 pm
Oh, and before I forget…
so i have no place within feminism as i am not ashamed of my masculinity…
is an example of sexism in that it says that only men who are ashamed of their masculinity - that is those who are not real men - can be on the side of feminism.
The importance of enforcing gender roles is, I believe, one of the major differences between feminists & anti-feminists.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
September 1st, 2005 at 3:47 pm
Really?
I don’t believe in enforcing gender roles at all.
This comment was written by typhonblue.Report this comment to the moderators
September 1st, 2005 at 4:51 pm
Eh ? I don’t go to blogs teeming with misogynist twits to talk about how I am Woman, hear me roar, etc etc. Why the hell would I want to ? Misogyny is all around me every day. It’s not like I need it to experience the bloggers version of an exotic day-trip.
Big deal. First of all, women’s shelters may be by and large the product of feminism, but no woman who goes to a shelter wanting help has to trot out a highlighted copy of some work by Dworkin or Daly in order to get in. No battered woman is required to emerge from a shelter a card-carrying feminist, last I heard. So I fail to see the harm or confusion in using the term “feminist” and “woman” interchangeably in this case.
Furthermore, this is a feminist board. You landed here and started posting a bunch of shit that you knew full well would piss off the women here, most of whom are feminist. To get all weepy and defensive about it doesn’t make me feel sorry for you, and it wouldn’t make anybody feel sorry for you who had a lick of sense. All your attitude here proves is that you can dish it out but you can’t take it, like most trolls.
There’s a world of difference between saying, “I don’t believe in the Christian faith” and going to boards teeming with Christians who want to discuss specific tenets of their theology (or Christian-sponsored good works) and bullheadedly demanding that they drop whatever specific issue or good work that they are debating in order to prove to you, the loud, proud, non-Christian, that their general beliefs are valid;Especially if you are told over and over again that there are plenty of links and threads already discussing these more general overviews of the faith, and that they are there for you with just a click of the mouse. There’s a difference, IOW, between having a genuinely inquiring, respectful mind, and being a self-centered lout. You are behaving like a lout, and in an all-t00-cliched fashion, I might add.
You wouldn’t have the guts to do that to Christians anyway, I’ll wager. Christianity is the dominant faith in this culture, so it’s a poor parallel for how feminism is viewed in this culture. Trolls and bullies don’t, in general, go for targets who already operate from a position of dominance, or at least a position in which they consider themselves “the norm” and all others, “the others.” Trolls and bullies go for the vulnerable and the few in number. Trolls and bullies do not debate, they guilt-trip and play endless games of “NUH-UHHH !!” They want the spotlight off “the other” (in our case “other” = “woman”) and back where it belongs, on “the norm,” the male). I presume that’s why you’re here and not on some Christian blog somewhere.
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
September 1st, 2005 at 10:51 pm
In my experience trolls go anywhere they’re guaranteed a rise.
BTW, I have had heated discussions with Christians. Particularly the anti-homosexual, pro-life, fundementalist cadre.
I came here because of jatek… and when I saw the opportunity to question Amp further on the “totality of oppression” I jumped on it. Unfortunately this blog doesn’t have threaded discussions so it’s hard to keep conversations… well… railed.
This comment was written by typhonblue.Report this comment to the moderators
September 2nd, 2005 at 4:34 am
Yeah, another thread derailed by trolls who want to whine. Bravo.
Can’t imagine why that gets the regular posters pissed.
Anybody who supports Jake the troll doesn’t deserve patience.
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
September 2nd, 2005 at 7:28 am
Oh, ginmar, you know that the Christians in this country are beaten, raped and harassed daily by the mean hordes of pagans, Jews, and Moslems ! Why, being a Christian in America is exactly like being a woman in America ! Didn’t you get the memo ?
Well, Troppo, now that you’ve been fed for a few days, perhaps you’d like to go back to your own LJ and share your premature pomposity with people actually fool enough to seek it out themselves.
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
September 2nd, 2005 at 11:42 am
I’m waiting for Amp to respond to my question.
BTW, Christians feel they’re persecuted too. And whenever I discuss anything with them they are constantly on about mainstream “christian-bashing”. Plus, logically, over half of them are subject to the same abuse as feminists.
I’m pretty sure they blame anti-christian culture for that as well though.
This comment was written by typhonblue.Report this comment to the moderators
September 2nd, 2005 at 1:58 pm
if i were to tell what i think a man is, would that not just be my opinion? and how is saying that it is one’s life experience that determines one’s masculinity wrong? it seems as if you are under the impression that there either is, or that i think there is, only one form of masculinity. also, i think you have a serious misunderstanding of my meaning, either intentionally or through accident.
here’s a basic question. do you think a 16 year old is a man? if not, why? if so, why? in other words, what it is that you think makes him a man?
as i said, it is one’s life experiences that teach one to be a man. and i doubt you would deny that being male is a unique experience. so would it not be logical then to assume that if one wanted to better understand masculinity, one would seek out a male who has had more experience? after all, if you want wisdom and advise, you would not ask a 2 year old, would you?
that is not to say that someone who is young cannot be a man, merely that it is unlikely that one without experience will have that understanding. the same holds true for wisdom, or do you disagree?
that would contradict amp’s statement then. he stated that boys who could not fit into society’s view of masculinity have a place in feminism. if it did not involve an element of shame, why would feminism offer them solace? would the purpose of feminism not then serve to remove that shame? likewise, you didn’t address my questions about how feminism responds to traditional masculinity if feminism is accepting of variations in gender roles. as i stated, i don’t fit into the “traditional” male stereotype, just like the vast majority of men. but would it not be equally sexist to deem traditional masculinity as “bad” or “rigid” simply because they do not work for you?
This comment was written by jaketk.Report this comment to the moderators
September 2nd, 2005 at 1:59 pm
btw, typhon. thanks.
This comment was written by jaketk.Report this comment to the moderators
September 2nd, 2005 at 2:13 pm
because every woman is not a feminist, and feminism is a political ideology, not sex or gender. using your logic, the words “liberal” and “gay” should be interchangeable.
but that is not what was going on. it would be more akin to christians patting themselves on the back because of a reduction in the deaths of US soldiers in iraq (which would be a good thing) despite the death rate of muslim iraqis doubling (which would be a bad thing), and then proceeding to ask why they should care since it isn’t their problem.
another personal attack… you would lose that bet. after all, i went to a catholic school. and what makes you think that i don’t visit other blogs? you seem to be making a lot of assumptions without any evidence. it would seem then that some feminists have more in common with the christian right than they think.
This comment was written by jaketk.Report this comment to the moderators
September 2nd, 2005 at 4:04 pm This comment was written by typhonblue.
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September 2nd, 2005 at 4:04 pm
Sorry for the above, I forgot to close a blockquote.
This comment was written by typhonblue.Report this comment to the moderators
September 2nd, 2005 at 4:29 pm
This comment was written by typhonblue.
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September 2nd, 2005 at 4:30 pm
This comment was written by typhonblue.
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September 2nd, 2005 at 5:05 pm
And as I said, feminism is not required for a battered woman to gain entry into a shelter. I know you have a hard time believing this, Jake, but that’s actually what this thread was supposed to be about: Battered women.
[snicker] I guess you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you, Jakey ? Well, now that it’s been well established that this thread belongs to SYG trolls, and that actual feminists don’t belong in it, I guess I’m all done here. You two enjoy yourselves.
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
September 2nd, 2005 at 6:00 pm
Aside from both being woman-centric?
This comment was written by typhonblue.Report this comment to the moderators
September 2nd, 2005 at 9:11 pm
Aside from both being woman-centric?
Wow. That’s one of the most obtuse things I’ve ever seen, and that is a hotly-contested title.
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
September 2nd, 2005 at 9:55 pm
A religion that worships a woman who became pregnant through an abstraction, gave birth to a chaste man who died for *men’s* sins (not women’s since Mary absolved them of sins by giving birth to Christ) and that considers any sex involving a penis to be debased… seems somewhat pro-woman.
Add that to the fact that all Christian societies see a gradual but definite generational improvement in women’s position and only Christian societies give birth to feminism, seems like Christianity might have some woman-centric tendancies.
This comment was written by typhonblue.Report this comment to the moderators
September 3rd, 2005 at 4:25 am
Yeah, that’s like saying prostitution is woman-centric. Xtianity worships some men’s vision of women, TB, not real women. Furthermore, it punishes real women. Yeah, gee, thanks.
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
September 3rd, 2005 at 10:32 am
How does Christianity punish women? Does budhism punish men by holding them to a standard, an ideal man?
This comment was written by typhonblue.Report this comment to the moderators
September 3rd, 2005 at 8:55 pm
Christ, I’m not going to re-invent the wheel here, TB. This is exactly the sort of question people ask when they’re being disingenuous trolls. “Gee, is the sky blue?”
Go google double standard and virgin/whore. Then try and convince me you’ve been living under a damn rock your whole life.
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
September 4th, 2005 at 2:48 pm
I’m guessing you’re talking about punishment for sexual transgressions.
Historically Christianity was unique as it held men to the same sexual standards as women. Adultery was a sin, regardless if it the adulterer was male or female. That was a radical notion for it’s time and was probably one of the many reasons Roman Matrons embraced it. (Romen Matrons were the avenue by which Christianity grew to pre-eminence in Roman society, btw.) St. Augustine surmonized on this very topic; he essentially told off the men of his congregration for being weaker then the women because of their adulterous behavior.
Christianity also enabled women to embrace a chaste life undefined by men’s sexuality via service to the Church. Prior to Christianity a Roman woman was either a wife or a prostitute, she had no other function but to serve men’s sexual and reproductive aims.
Now when Christianity became main-stream and Christian societies took over the task of enforcing law… men and women’s adultery were punished differently. Because they were viewed, economically but not spiritually or morally, *as* different. Without a wife’s fidelity, a man can’t be assured that his economic investment is going to his own children. The same can’t be said in terms of a husband’s fidelity. But still, a woman’s infidelity was only seen as more severe then a man’s in *economic* terms, and legal punishments reflected that, requireing economic restitution not additional spiritual or moral punishments. Men’s infidelity was still spiritually and morally wrong, even if it’s economic impact on a wife was negligable.
And then there is the issue of same-sex sexual transgressions. Throughout Christian history, it has waged a deadly war against men’s same-sex transgressions while, at the same time, ignoring women’s. That fact alone supports the contention that, historically, Christians punished men far more frequently and severely for sexual transgressions then it has for women.
This comment was written by typhonblue.Report this comment to the moderators
September 4th, 2005 at 3:06 pm
As for the virgin/whore dichotomy… men in Ancient Rome were also divided into catagories based on their sexual actions, namely man vs. cinaedus, does that prove they were oppressed?
This comment was written by typhonblue.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2005 at 2:29 pm
You’re being disingenuous and long-winded here, TB. Are you actually trying to deny that Xtianity isn’t the biggest purveyer of sexism there is?
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
September 5th, 2005 at 3:10 pm
No. I’m not at all.
I think we’re just disagreeing which sex is the whipping boy of Christian sexism.
BTW, even if virgin/whore is a common meme in christian society… if it doesn’t translate into actual punishment for sexual transgressions then how is it anything more then a catty insult leveled at women (often by other women)?
Just like cinaedus was a catty insult among male Roman citizens.
Now a more pertinent question would be, have Christians historically punished female fornicators more then male?
The answer is, no. In fact the opposite might entertained since male fornicators could be punished by being forced to pay money to the woman they took “advantage” of.
As for being unable to condense a historical argument into convienent “four legs good, two legs better” sound bite… my appologies but where I come from contentions need to be supported with fact, and fact does need a bit more space to elucidate.
This comment was written by typhonblue.Report this comment to the moderators
September 8th, 2005 at 7:31 am
The answer is no? Well, gee, let me just overlook the real world and take your word for it.
I’m constantly amazed when people try this.
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
September 8th, 2005 at 4:25 pm
the virgin/whore theme doesn’t exist in all of christianity. it’s a particualrly western element. eastern churches interpret the bible in many different ways, and their views of women aren’t all the same. more so, early christians in the US actually viewed women as purer than men. it was man who was vile, man who was corruptible. this is the reason why when the witch trials began that it was so easy to target women. what would be the best guise if not those who are the purest?
and honestly, if you look back on the history of the church, there has been a far greater deal of violence, cruelty and truly unecessary and bizarre restraints placed on males within the western church, particularly during the medieval period. that’s not to say women haven’t been targeted, but if we were being honest, we’d have to admit that most religions demand far more from their male members.
This comment was written by jaketk.Report this comment to the moderators
September 8th, 2005 at 11:50 pm
I would like to see on what is the study based upon. On the surface, it seems like one of those agenda oriented studies, as there is a much simpler explanation to the decline in women’s murder rate: a decline in ALL murder rates, men and women alike.
Furthermore, there is little correlation between women’s murder rate and misogynism. In Japan for instance, a country far more patriarchal and misogynistic than the US, women’s murder and rape rates are far lower than in the US. This is true regarding many countries. I would venture say that in strict Muslim countries the murder rate is relatively low, even though they are highly patriarchal and misogynistic. The simple explanation is that in those countries, for many different reasons, violence in general is lower than in the US, so violence against women is lower too. It has nothing to do with misogynism or feminism.
Besides, the anti-Feminists do not object to Equity Feminism (the notion that men and women ought to be equal) - few today would object to women being equal to men! - but object to Gender (aka Radical) Feminism (the notion that the definitions of gender, particularly the male gender, ought to be redefined and molded anew via coercive legal measures and irrespective of scientific data). The vast majority of Americans, and I suspect Brits too, are uncomfortable with the ideas and methods of the latter. So before we use this study to bolster “Feminism” in general, we ought to be careful to note which brand of Feminism are we talking about: Equity Feminism or Gender/Radical Feminism? If this study has merit, it might bolster the anyway-agreed-upon Equity Feminism, but hardly the controversial Gender Feminism.
This comment was written by MrZ.Report this comment to the moderators
September 9th, 2005 at 8:19 am
MrZ wrote:
MrZ, with all due respect, did you even read the linked article? The article makes it clear that both murder rates of men and the overall murder rate has been increasing, not declining:
As far as I can tell from the article (and we’ll know more when the study itself is published and available), it’s specifically the murder of women by men that has been declining. Clearly, your alternative explanation holds no water.
Regarding Japan, I don’t think that’s a meaningful argument, because there are so many confounding factors that you’re ignoring. The murder rate in the US is ridiculously high compared to all other countries; I could just as easily say “Sweden has a much lower murder rate, and is much more feminist than the US, therefore misogyny causes murder.” That’s obviously not a reasonable conclusion to draw from such simplistic data; but your conclusion drawn from Japan’s low murder rate is just as unreasonable and simplistic.
Nor is it clear that Japan’s rape prevalence is all that low; more than one study has suggested that Japan’s official rape statistics severely undercount the incidence of actual rape. What you’re saying is proof that misogyny has nothing to do with rape prevalence, may just be proof that in a more misogynistic culture, women are much less likely to report rape to the authorities.
I wouldn’t know - and even if you were correct, that doesn’t logically establish that misogyny has “nothing to do” with the rate of murdering women, only that it’s not the one and only factor. Again, international comparisons that don’t control for any confounding factors at all are meaningless.
The Gender/Equity feminism dichotomy is not one I take seriously; it is incompatable with any serious intellectual analysis.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
September 10th, 2005 at 8:35 am
Shorter Jake the troll: PHMT! Or better yet: Patriarchy hurts men more!
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
September 11th, 2005 at 10:25 am
uh-huh… thanks for demostrating yet again that when one is incapable of debasing a point, there is always unprovable, all-encompassing biased rhetoric. it’s almost like being in catholic high school again…
This comment was written by jaketk.Report this comment to the moderators
January 11th, 2006 at 5:58 pm
Just in case you want to know what the original article was actually about, a summary:
http://www.sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/publications/commentary/red_pepper_inequality_kills.pdf
all the best…
This comment was written by Danny Dorling.Report this comment to the moderators