Right on then. The MRA’s seem to boil down to a few guys who are advancing a misogynist agenda under a false flag, and attracting a scary amount of nasty trollies along the way. As long as the issues and cases can be viewed by their own merits, in their own context, without social gender bias assigned that’s what matters in the aftermath. I’d prefer that we had had a society where no one felt it necessary to scream “penis!” at their employees, but Adams perhaps said it best - “to summarize the summary of the summary, people are a problem.” 
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it’s a shame those issues are poisoned by a few people operating under a false flag of gender equality when their words would seem to indicate a misogynist agenda.
You can choose to only look at the worst aspects of any movement and let that shape your definition of it.
If you only look at the radical feminists who have said things like “I feel that ‘man-hating’ is an honorable and viable political act,” or “The proportion of men must be reduced to and maintained at approximately 10% of the human race.” you’ll have a pretty shit opinion of Feminism as well.
But hopefully, if you do this in either case, you’ll have the intellectual honesty to realize that you are, in effect, lying to yourself.
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Actually, there is culturally entrenched anti-male sexism as well. It takes different forms from anti-female sexism, but it exists.
For instance, male suffering is generally laughed at and mocked. Males are seen as disposable. There is an ingrained believe that only men are capable of abuse and violence. Males are expected to sacrifice themselves for females, and for the wider group. All of these trends are examples of sexism, just as a discussion of a female CEO’s makeup and fashion sense is.
Pointing these things out is why the MR movement is a valid thing, and the knee-jerk hostility to it is similar to the knee-jerk hostility to Feminism in the '60s.
According to the well regarded OECD, women in almost all western countries enjoy higher quality of life in all ways than men, and face easily provable judicial discrimination in the US. So I say that ‘male privilege,’ for the average, non-elite man, is a pretty superficial thing.
When all factors are controlled for, men receive 63% longer sentences in Federal prosecutions:
http://www.law.umich.edu/newsandinfo/features/Pages/starr_gender_disparities.aspx
http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/ (click ‘gender differences’)
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My post was an attempt to get robulus to agree precisely with the point you’re making. If you look at one of my previous posts, I’ve made the same argument (individual injustice is a separate consideration from social injustice). Forkboy also made the point that - on an individual level - abusive behavior in the workplace is equally unacceptable - independently of who does it to whom - and robulus seemed to disagree.
As to your dismissal of MR groups, I’m not convinced. What do you base your perception on? I’m not claiming I’m an expert, but I have spent a bit of time posting in both feminist and MR forums.
There are a number of gender equality concerns that specifically affect men. These are fewer in number than those that affect women, but they exist. I don’t see why a group that aims to address these issues deserves derision. Feminist activism is unlikely to prioritize certain issues that mainly affect men negatively. That doesn’t mean we should leave them until every single feminist concern has been addressed (although I’ve seen people argue that).
In principle, everyone should be on board with a group that promotes gender equality. From what I can tell via online interaction, the crazy fringe of MR is slightly larger than the crazy fringe of feminist groups, but not significantly so. Besides the crazy fringe, you will find quite a few people who are truly interested in gender equality, but have found for one reason or another, that feminism isn’t a way for them to express that interest.
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The problem with patriarchy theory, in short, is that when men gain power, they tend to use it to oppress other men, not create a situation helpful to them.
Patriarchy is wonderful for the 10% of males with the most dominant personalities, and horrible for the rest.
So using it to excuse a female boss dumping on her underlings doesn’t make sense.
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So a systematic disadvantage suffered by men shouldn’t be addressed on a cultural and political level until we’ve reached the tipping point of systematic abuse where men suffer more than women? Or are you saying, there are no systematic disadvantages suffered by men? Where are you taking your ideas about “movements” from?
Do you think gender equality is a zero sum game, where removing injustices against men causes injustice against women? Not that this would be the first time I’ve heard somebody argue that.
So it would be bullshit for “Men’s Rights” groups to use this example for their bullshit cause, but they probably will anyway
And you came to this conclusion by extensive study of …
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No, just in The Guardian. I personally prefer Archie comics to them on most days.
So a systematic disadvantage suffered by men shouldn’t be addressed on a cultural and political level until we’ve reached the tipping point of systematic abuse where men suffer more than women?
No, but anything defined as “systematic” should be relatively “widespread” and/or “prevalent” wherein a movement or “cause” would make sense. From a probability standpoint, there can exist a certain number/level of abuses/occasions (or of anything) and it can fall under the normal number of deviations one would expect to randomly occur given a particular number of trails (or in this case human interactions). So the fact that something does happen, doesn’t instantly make it “systematic”. It has to happen at a certain level to make it past what could be considered the “normal” level of abnormal events. Some people will abuse other people due to individual circumstances - they’re deranged, or spiteful, emotionally unstable, or there’s something personal between two people. None of which should be okay, but until a behavior becomes widespread beyond a certain degree, it’s just human fallibility at work and nothing more embedded on a cultural level.
To define something as “systematic” does require statistics, and statistics require relative comparisons, so the greater suffering of some groups does effect how we define the suffering of the less disadvantaged groups. But it’s not zero sum, or a comparison that must equate perfectly.
Or are you saying, there are no systematic disadvantages suffered by men?
None that I’m aware of. But I’m aware of many, many systematic disadvantages that have been studied and reported upon (some that have held up to scrutiny, and yes some that haven’t) regarding women and other gender and racial minorities. I’ve never seen any studies on male disadvantage that held up to scrutiny. Not one. And I’m aware of that our society has been and still is largely patriarchal, and what that tends to mean in regards to gender relations. Nothing is set in stone, but so far what’s held up the best from a logical standpoint has been that a) there are no or comparatively few male disadvantages in our culture (“disadvantages” do not = obstacles or suffering, a “disadvantage” can only exist as a comparison to an advantage - someone that has it better) and b) women and minorities still do suffer from a systematic oppression, both economically and socially, as these groups have a weaker history of being either wealthy or included in the most advantageous social groups, and these practices remain both consciously and unconsciously.
Do you think gender equality is a zero sum game, where removing injustices against men causes injustice against women? Not that this would be the first time I’ve heard somebody argue that.
Definitely not. Not even sure where you’re getting this one from, so not sure how to respond beyond “nope”.
And you came to this conclusion by extensive study of …
The semi-snarky answer to this is: actively challenging conclusions without bothering to look into them yourself is no less taking a stance than the person stating the conclusion. And since you didn’t bother to look into it yourself, you obviously don’t hold yourself to the same standard of requiring extensive studies to support stated opinions. But I digress…
The real answer is: the many extensive studies (I’m not going to Google search for you) that say men are not disadvantaged as compared to any other group. And SOMEone else has to be “advantaged” over men for them to be considered “DISadvantaged”. Men can be a part of a larger disadvantaged group (like “youth”, or racial groups, or senior citizens, etc.). But on their own, no on else is in fact advantaged over them. Not in any study that’s ever been done, and since many studies have been done to research how others might be disadvantaged as compared to men, it would have been revealed if men were in fact equal to or worse off than anyone else in the course of such studies. The statistics would have demanded this even if the researchers’ opinions within any given study were biased.
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The biggest problem I have with the sentencing study is that it doesn’t seem to calculate violence into it’s paradigm, and that’s kind of key. I read through the PDF and it takes into account that all charges are non-petty, but says nothing about violent or non-violent. Men tend to do the vast, vast majority of all violent crimes, whereas women amount for significantly few, and that would obviously mean an enormous difference in sentencing.
Uh…no. Patriarchy puts all men above everyone else by default. They might battle it out with other men beyond that, but that has no bearing on their oppression of all non-men.
Also: no one has excused the female boss. Not one single person. Reading comprehension is your friend.
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But the debate is whether there is, fairly, a “Men’s RIghts” movement at all, that should be considered legit. That’s like a “Protect the 1%” movement. I’m sure the wealthiest people in the country suffer many things, and have human problems like the rest of us (and some problems not at all like the rest of us because we’re not that rich). Similar with men. But neither group needs a populist or grassroots “movement” for social change, because society doesn’t put them at a disadvantage to begin with. All we need to do is not disallow them the standard human and legal rights to protect their interests and well being and…that’s it.
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I think that when trying to make value judgements about ‘badness’, you are using an unusual scale. There is a fair bit of grey area at the low end, but once you get up to serious criminal physical violence, the wiggle room of ‘badness’ becomes very narrow.
So in the case of sexual violence, nuances of how bad it is become fairly meaningless. Whereas when you are discussing whether its OK to make a joke about a female boss calling her male employees ‘penis’, when you wouldn’t make the same joke if the genders were reversed, it is considerably more appropriate to discuss levels of ‘badness’ and how they are affected by broader social structures.
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It’s a good thing patriarchy doesn’t exist in real life, if that’s what it means. These effects are real, but they aren’t automatic, universal and immutable. The fact that Queen Elizabeth is a woman made it less likely that she would be queen, and might even have made people respect her less than they would a king, but there’s no way that she’s beneath our level. Similarly, the female boss probably had to work harder to reach her level than if she were a man, but her employees aren’t going to start ordering her around because she’s a woman. She might get less respect if she were in a meeting with a few managers at the same level as her, though. It would be better to say that throughout society and on every level, women are valued lower than men are.
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Not in this case. Nancy Silberkleit seems to have the job based on being the widow of Michael Silberkleit. Michael Silberkleit being the son of one of the cofounders of the publisher. Go nepotism!
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Yes, but if she were a man and had been the husband of Michael… wait, never mind.
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educated by whom? the ‘protectors’?
it’s not that anyone needs to catch up. there’s really not much to the ‘winners’ of class warfare.
Yes. We’re agreeing. Women being valued less than men, all other elements being equal, means men are “above” women by default as they are “above” everyone, by default, all other things being equal. There’s a loooong thread of comments above that’s already hashed out a lot of this. Let’s not force every comment to define its terminology again and again, or suddenly think we’re saying something that contradicts all our previous comments because we paraphrased and used different specific word choices.
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First let me clearly state the general principle behind my argument: If there is a single unfair systematic disadvantage suffered by a group of people, then it is morally unobjectionable to have a group of people come together to try and rectify this state of affairs by concerted action. I use the word “unfair” because there are also systematic disadvantages suffered by groups that are legitimate, for example, the disadvantage that people of low general intelligence can’t be neurosurgeons, or the disadvantage that men can’t be surrogate mothers.
I concede that any morally unobjectionable pattern of behavior may be part of a larger, morally objectionable pattern (e.g., when I systematically only form activist groups to change disadvantages suffered by one group and actively oppose all other such attempts), but that’s a separate point. (In general, stabbing a slab of meat with a knife is morally unobjectionable. The situation changes when context is that the slab of meat is a live person. It would still be a non-sequitur to demonize “meat slab stabbers” as a whole.)
Now let me apply the general principle to the situation at hand:
- I believe there is at least one unfair systematic disadvantage suffered by men.
- If there is a single unfair systematic disadvantage suffered by a group of people, then it is morally unobjectionable to have a group of people come together to try and rectify this state of affairs by concerted action.
- From 1&2: It is morally unobjectionable to have a group of people coming together to rectify a systematic disadvantage suffered by men.
“If 1 & 2 then 3” is a valid argument. I hope this is out of the question. I assume that you agree with 2 (keeping in mind the disclaimer that a morally unobjectionable pattern of behavior may be part of a larger, morally objectionable pattern of behavior, which is a separate question). So I assume that our difference in opinion comes from proposition 1: I agree with it, and you disagree.
If I’m correct so far, I can see two reasons for our disagreement:
A) Our definition of “unfair systematic disadvantage” is different
B) One of us is wrong.
If you are with me so far, and if we are interested in following through with this discussion, we need to commit at this point to intellectual honesty and promise to refrain from flip-flopping on definitions or engaging in special pleading, and to change our minds if we find out we are wrong. I’ve wasted too much time typing out lengthy treatises to people only to find out that they’re not willing to change their views, regardless of the evidence.
Note that my argument only requires showing an existential statement: There must be one single instance of a systematic disadvantage suffered by men. Not two, just one. Opposing 1 requires defending a universal statement, which is much harder. I hope your realize that this is not me bending the rules in my favor, but the hardship that comes upon you when you try to argue universals.
If you are willing to play, here are the rules I suggest:
I) You come up with a definition of “unfair systematic disadvantage” that is reasonably close to common meaning of the phrase (e.g., dictionary definitions) and reasonably unambiguous. I will of course offer criticism and request clarification if I feel it is necessary. The discussion may end here, if we find that our disagreement is based on a different understanding of the term “systematic disadvantage”.
II) I try and find an instance of your definition that happens in the world (either provably by statistics, or based on common sense). To narrow down the scope, I will restrict myself to North America and Europe. If I manage to show both that the example I find satisfies your definition (which should be precise enough for you not to be able to engage in special pleading) and that it happens in the world, then you change your mind about proposition 1.
I understand that you may not be willing to spend the time and energy required to get to the bottom of this, in which case, no worries. Alternatively, if you feel I got the setup of the question wrong, you can maybe try and use my terminology to explain why.
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