Criticisms of Feminism

[Ashkera]

It's not illogical at all.

It's a question, not a statement. I did not say "the courts are run by men, therefore they can't be bias against men". If I'd intended to say that it's what I would have said.

Instead I'm trying to see if anyone will tell me the reason why a primarily male dominated institution would be so bias against men.

Think of it like this. If I tell you: Why does 1+1=2? Does it mean I believe that 1+1 does not equal 2? No of course not. That's not how questions work.

Frequently, the implicit assumption is made that men would conspire to, or otherwise act to, help their gender specifically. This is generally not accurate.

The courts are still running Male Hyperagency (all the agency that got shifted off of women had to go somewhere, so men soak up more social blame), Male Disposability, and the classic Protect 'n' Provide gender role.

It's sexist, and mostly originated with the traditionalists, but the feminist movement depends on all of those to get resources and action from men.

[Russels Orbiting Teapot]

I really feel like feminists need to pick one or the other: Either men need to line up behind feminism to fight against all gender roles, or feminists need to get out of the way when men fight for their own rights. Gender roles are imposed upon all of us by traditional conservative forces, and pretending that men's issues don't matter because they've historically had better rewards for adhering to their gender roles is really asinine.

Instead we have cognitive dissonance where many feminists seem to simultaneously hold the belief that feminism will deal with men's issues too and that men's issues are unimportant because men are already privileged.

[New Edom]

It's not illogical at all.

It's a question, not a statement. I did not say "the courts are run by men, therefore they can't be bias against men". If I'd intended to say that it's what I would have said.

Instead I'm trying to see if anyone will tell me the reason why a primarily male dominated institution would be so bias against men.

Think of it like this. If I tell you: Why does 1+1=2? Does it mean I believe that 1+1 does not equal 2? No of course not. That's not how questions work.

Frequently, the implicit assumption is made that men would conspire to, or otherwise act to, help their gender specifically. This is generally not accurate.

The courts are still running Male Hyperagency (all the agency that got shifted off of women had to go somewhere, so men soak up more social blame), Male Disposability, and the classic Protect 'n' Provide gender role.

It's sexist, and mostly originated with the traditionalists, but the feminist movement depends on all of those to get resources and action from men.

The last sentence I think sums it up very well and is very true. A lot of liberal support for feminism I believe comes from this too. As I have said before, it would be profitable for feminists to confront this; they would actually get more allies.

[New Edom]

I really feel like feminists need to pick one or the other: Either men need to line up behind feminism to fight against all gender roles, or feminists need to get out of the way when men fight for their own rights. Gender roles are imposed upon all of us by traditional conservative forces, and pretending that men's issues don't matter because they've historically had better rewards for adhering to their gender roles is really asinine.

Instead we have cognitive dissonance where many feminists seem to simultaneously hold the belief that feminism will deal with men's issues too and that men's issues are unimportant because men are already privileged.

Very true. This is not as some would have it just a divide between radical feminist and liberal/moderate feminist, but is generally true across the board. If men are seen to suffer from anything, it is almost entirely seen as being things like men not being able to cry without shame or men not being able to be effeminate without shame. In fact those are the issues almost always talked about, with the occasional vague notion of letting go of privilege thrown in.

[Llamalandia]

Umm ok, but then how for example is (assuming it is real and unjust) the pay gap between men women a harm to men? Oh no mr boss man please don't pay me more for doing the exact same job as my female colleague. I am so burdened and oppressed by the patriarchy, giving me 30% more just for being a man.

[New Edom]

Umm ok, but then how for example is (assuming it is real and unjust) the pay gap between men women a harm to men? Oh no mr boss man please don't pay me more for doing the exact same job as my female colleague. I am so burdened and oppressed by the patriarchy, giving me 30% more just for being a man.

I haven't mentioned that, I don't think the others I was responding to did either. I do not respect the feminist tactic of always trying to bring up something new rather than focusing on the subject at hand, nor does the sarcastic tone suggest you are interested in having an actual discussion.

[Seangoli]

Umm ok, but then how for example is (assuming it is real and unjust) the pay gap between men women a harm to men? Oh no mr boss man please don't pay me more for doing the exact same job as my female colleague. I am so burdened and oppressed by the patriarchy, giving me 30% more just for being a man.

I haven't mentioned that, I don't think the others I was responding to did either. I do not respect the feminist tactic of always trying to bring up something new rather than focusing on the subject at hand, nor does the sarcastic tone suggest you are interested in having an actual discussion.

It also completely ignores the root causes of these issues. When controlled for experience, exact job nature, and hours worked, the gap is much closer to about 3-5%. A disparity for certain, and one that certainly should be dealt with, but hardly indicative of the system being massively biased against women in terms of pay.

It also belies the real problem that exists for women in the work place. Like it or not, women work fewer hours than men do this is a simple fact of life. There are various reasons *why* this is the case. In a good many instances, it's due to significant time off from work due to pregnancy and childbirth. This time off manifests itself into fewer hours and time spent at the workplace, and a loss of opportunity in general. Now the father certainly *could* stay at home, and the mother could certainly go back to work. The problem with this, however, is that while maternity leave in general is pretty piss-poor, paternity leave is almost entirely non-existent. Given how shit our economy is, and how horrendously bad pay is all around, most people simply cannot afford to have a single income. So the father works, the mother gets maternity leave for some period, just to make ends meet. Few families even have the option of having the mother return to work even if she wanted to by simple economics. It's simply impossible to survive on a single income in today's age.

And this is only a single instance. Roughly 40% of women have had significant interuptions in their career for various reasons. On a similar note, 24% of men stated the same. To be blunt, a huge part of the pay discrepency comes from the statistical fact that women more often than men leave the work force for extended periods of time for various reasons, and with that goes opportunities for promotions and raises. And with that comes some very shitty expectations about women who get hired for new positions.

It is no wonder that young, single, childless women earn more than men in this regard. They have had an uninterrupted career track and have received opportunities that other women simply don't have by the nature how these things work. It's not that, in this instance, the system is full of sexist men who dislike women. It's that the economy is shitty, and due to how things play out women got the raw end of the deal. Someone has to take care of the children, and if only one of the parents gets some sort of guaranteed leave and the other doesn't, it makes no sense for the one who doesn't get leave to stay home. It's economically impractical in this day and age.

If you want to reduce the pay gap, you need to first address why women are more likely to take extended breaks from their career, and then address those problems. Demanding better pay and that's it doesn't actually fix the problem. It's a child's way of looking at the world.

Part of the way to fix this problem is to push for better maternity and paternity leave. How would paternity leave help women? Well, see above. It's nearly impossible to survive on a single income in this day and age. Someone has to stay home with the kids and someone has to work. It's just that brutally simple. Better paternity leave would allow those mothers who would be forced to take a leave from work to actually stay in their chosen career, without having to worry about the economics of the situation.

Do note that this isn't the only solution, nor am I claiming that this is the only root of the problem. But it is a big part of the problem, and one which will certainly help fix the problem. There are other things that are sorely needed, but addressing the symptom of the problem rather than the problem doesn't fix a damn thing.

I

[Russels Orbiting Teapot]

Umm ok, but then how for example is (assuming it is real and unjust) the pay gap between men women a harm to men? Oh no mr boss man please don't pay me more for doing the exact same job as my female colleague. I am so burdened and oppressed by the patriarchy, giving me 30% more just for being a man.

The "30%" number is not for the exact same job. It is over the careers of all women vs all men and mostly driven by the fact that there are more men in higher paying career jobs and more women in lower paying jobs and who are homemakers.

The actual wage gap for the same job is not in the double digits.

[Llamalandia]

Umm ok, but then how for example is (assuming it is real and unjust) the pay gap between men women a harm to men? Oh no mr boss man please don't pay me more for doing the exact same job as my female colleague. I am so burdened and oppressed by the patriarchy, giving me 30% more just for being a man.

I haven't mentioned that, I don't think the others I was responding to did either. I do not respect the feminist tactic of always trying to bring up something new rather than focusing on the subject at hand, nor does the sarcastic tone suggest you are interested in having an actual discussion.

Two things, one I wasn't necessarily addressing you or your arguments in particular and 2. From the op

The fact is (and I recommend you take this very seriously), gender discrimination goes both ways. Yes, women are generally paid less. Yes, women are generally seen as being weaker. Yes, women are being treated with less respect. What you do not realize is that the discrimination of women is equally damaging to the male gender. H

Also I'm not a feminist nor do I believe there actually is a wage gap based on gender or rather, there may be but it is justifiable as a result of the different work preferences of men and women.

[Llamalandia]

Umm ok, but then how for example is (assuming it is real and unjust) the pay gap between men women a harm to men? Oh no mr boss man please don't pay me more for doing the exact same job as my female colleague. I am so burdened and oppressed by the patriarchy, giving me 30% more just for being a man.

The "30%" number is not for the exact same job. It is over the careers of all women vs all men and mostly driven by the fact that there are more men in higher paying career jobs and more women in lower paying jobs and who are homemakers.

The actual wage gap for the same job is not in the double digits.

Good point I wasn't accounting for any counter arguments though. I was just throwing the unchallenged feminist talking point of a wage gap out there and pretending that it is true for the sake of argument.

[Russels Orbiting Teapot]

Good point I wasn't accounting for any counter arguments though. I was just throwing the unchallenged feminist talking point of a wage gap out there and pretending that it is true for the sake of argument.

Were you trying to be sarcastic, then? I'm not sure what you were trying to accomplish.

[Ostroeuropa]

That's illogical.

You are fundamentally assuming that gender is the single most important factor in the decision making of these groups. You are, in fact, claiming that none of these people do their jobs properly (which, to be fair, may be true to some extent or another). It's the exact sort of wrong thinking that assumes that person of X category can only be represented in Y respect by someone of X category. You remove all individual agency.

It's not illogical at all.

It's a question, not a statement. I did not say "the courts are run by men, therefore they can't be bias against men". If I'd intended to say that it's what I would have said.

Instead I'm trying to see if anyone will tell me the reason why a primarily male dominated institution would be so bias against men.

Think of it like this. If I tell you: Why does 1+1=2? Does it mean I believe that 1+1 does not equal 2? No of course not. That's not how questions work.

Because of misandry and bias in favor of women.
Men lack in-group bias. They are bias in favor of women.
Women have an in-group bias in favor of eachother.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E2%80%9CW ... %9D_effect

The way to fix this is either with more misogyny in the world, or to decrease misandry and get women to be much more in favor of men, and men to be in favor of men more.

I think the reason you have trouble understanding how an institution full of men could be bias against men is because you assume men think the same way women do. They don't. They aren't as bias as women toward eachother.
This is how mostly male institutions can still discriminate against men and in favor of women, while mostly female institutions do the same.
It's a systemic problem with the way men are perceived and treated.

Both men and women need to address their misandry.

[Chessmistress]

I really feel like feminists need to pick one or the other: Either men need to line up behind feminism to fight against all gender roles, or feminists need to get out of the way when men fight for their own rights. Gender roles are imposed upon all of us by traditional conservative forces, and pretending that men's issues don't matter because they've historically had better rewards for adhering to their gender roles is really asinine.

Instead we have cognitive dissonance where many feminists seem to simultaneously hold the belief that feminism will deal with men's issues too and that men's issues are unimportant because men are already privileged.

It's not "cognitive dissonance", it's just a matter of timings.
Feminism will deal with men's issues too: when women will have true equality, men's issues will disappear.
But before women reach true equality, men will suffer more and more due they're losing their privileges: this is expected, and it's a collateral effect, not a goal of feminism.
As long as men are privileged, they have issues, and these issues are secondary because men are, on the whole, privileged.
When men will be not privileged anymore, their issues will disappear.

Because of misandry and bias in favor of women.
Men lack in-group bias. They are bias in favor of women.
Women have an in-group bias in favor of eachother.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E2%80%9CW ... %9D_effect

The way to fix this is either with more misogyny in the world, or to decrease misandry and get women to be much more in favor of men, and men to be in favor of men more.

I think the reason you have trouble understanding how an institution full of men could be bias against men is because you assume men think the same way women do. They don't. They aren't as bias as women toward eachother.
This is how mostly male institutions can still discriminate against men and in favor of women, while mostly female institutions do the same.
It's a systemic problem with the way men are perceived and treated.

Both men and women need to address their misandry.

That's the strategy of MRA, more misogyny?

[New Edom]

I really feel like feminists need to pick one or the other: Either men need to line up behind feminism to fight against all gender roles, or feminists need to get out of the way when men fight for their own rights. Gender roles are imposed upon all of us by traditional conservative forces, and pretending that men's issues don't matter because they've historically had better rewards for adhering to their gender roles is really asinine.

Instead we have cognitive dissonance where many feminists seem to simultaneously hold the belief that feminism will deal with men's issues too and that men's issues are unimportant because men are already privileged.

It's not "cognitive dissonance", it's just a matter of timings.
Feminism will deal with men's issues too: when women will have true equality, men's issues will disappear.
But before women reach true equality, men will suffer more and more due they're losing their privileges: this is expected, and it's a collateral effect, not a goal of feminism.
As long as men are privileged, they have issues, and these issues are secondary because men are, on the whole, privileged.
When men will be not privileged anymore, their issues will disappear.

Because of misandry and bias in favor of women.
Men lack in-group bias. They are bias in favor of women.
Women have an in-group bias in favor of eachother.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E2%80%9CW ... %9D_effect

The way to fix this is either with more misogyny in the world, or to decrease misandry and get women to be much more in favor of men, and men to be in favor of men more.

I think the reason you have trouble understanding how an institution full of men could be bias against men is because you assume men think the same way women do. They don't. They aren't as bias as women toward eachother.
This is how mostly male institutions can still discriminate against men and in favor of women, while mostly female institutions do the same.
It's a systemic problem with the way men are perceived and treated.

Both men and women need to address their misandry.

That's the strategy of MRA, more misogyny?

Then we shouldn't support feminism, at all. No man should.

[Bigzoland]

I really feel like feminists need to pick one or the other: Either men need to line up behind feminism to fight against all gender roles, or feminists need to get out of the way when men fight for their own rights. Gender roles are imposed upon all of us by traditional conservative forces, and pretending that men's issues don't matter because they've historically had better rewards for adhering to their gender roles is really asinine.

Instead we have cognitive dissonance where many feminists seem to simultaneously hold the belief that feminism will deal with men's issues too and that men's issues are unimportant because men are already privileged.

It's not "cognitive dissonance", it's just a matter of timings.
Feminism will deal with men's issues too: when women will have true equality, men's issues will disappear.
But before women reach true equality, men will suffer more and more due they're losing their privileges: this is expected, and it's a collateral effect, not a goal of feminism.
As long as men are privileged, they have issues, and these issues are secondary because men are, on the whole, privileged.
When men will be not privileged anymore, their issues will disappear.

Because of misandry and bias in favor of women.
Men lack in-group bias. They are bias in favor of women.
Women have an in-group bias in favor of eachother.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E2%80%9CW ... %9D_effect

The way to fix this is either with more misogyny in the world, or to decrease misandry and get women to be much more in favor of men, and men to be in favor of men more.

I think the reason you have trouble understanding how an institution full of men could be bias against men is because you assume men think the same way women do. They don't. They aren't as bias as women toward eachother.
This is how mostly male institutions can still discriminate against men and in favor of women, while mostly female institutions do the same.
It's a systemic problem with the way men are perceived and treated.

Both men and women need to address their misandry.

That's the strategy of MRA, more misogyny?

The bolded is completly false.

Women have made great strides in recent decades with issues associated with gender roles, while men's situation has remained constant.

The whole "We'll get to you when we're done" comes off as incredibly condescending as well.

[Bigzoland]

I haven't mentioned that, I don't think the others I was responding to did either. I do not respect the feminist tactic of always trying to bring up something new rather than focusing on the subject at hand, nor does the sarcastic tone suggest you are interested in having an actual discussion.

It also completely ignores the root causes of these issues. When controlled for experience, exact job nature, and hours worked, the gap is much closer to about 3-5%. A disparity for certain, and one that certainly should be dealt with, but hardly indicative of the system being massively biased against women in terms of pay.

It also belies the real problem that exists for women in the work place. Like it or not, women work fewer hours than men do this is a simple fact of life. There are various reasons *why* this is the case. In a good many instances, it's due to significant time off from work due to pregnancy and childbirth. This time off manifests itself into fewer hours and time spent at the workplace, and a loss of opportunity in general. Now the father certainly *could* stay at home, and the mother could certainly go back to work. The problem with this, however, is that while maternity leave in general is pretty piss-poor, paternity leave is almost entirely non-existent. Given how shit our economy is, and how horrendously bad pay is all around, most people simply cannot afford to have a single income. So the father works, the mother gets maternity leave for some period, just to make ends meet. Few families even have the option of having the mother return to work even if she wanted to by simple economics. It's simply impossible to survive on a single income in today's age.

And this is only a single instance. Roughly 40% of women have had significant interuptions in their career for various reasons. On a similar note, 24% of men stated the same. To be blunt, a huge part of the pay discrepency comes from the statistical fact that women more often than men leave the work force for extended periods of time for various reasons, and with that goes opportunities for promotions and raises. And with that comes some very shitty expectations about women who get hired for new positions.

It is no wonder that young, single, childless women earn more than men in this regard. They have had an uninterrupted career track and have received opportunities that other women simply don't have by the nature how these things work. It's not that, in this instance, the system is full of sexist men who dislike women. It's that the economy is shitty, and due to how things play out women got the raw end of the deal. Someone has to take care of the children, and if only one of the parents gets some sort of guaranteed leave and the other doesn't, it makes no sense for the one who doesn't get leave to stay home. It's economically impractical in this day and age.

If you want to reduce the pay gap, you need to first address why women are more likely to take extended breaks from their career, and then address those problems. Demanding better pay and that's it doesn't actually fix the problem. It's a child's way of looking at the world.

Part of the way to fix this problem is to push for better maternity and paternity leave. How would paternity leave help women? Well, see above. It's nearly impossible to survive on a single income in this day and age. Someone has to stay home with the kids and someone has to work. It's just that brutally simple. Better paternity leave would allow those mothers who would be forced to take a leave from work to actually stay in their chosen career, without having to worry about the economics of the situation.

Do note that this isn't the only solution, nor am I claiming that this is the only root of the problem. But it is a big part of the problem, and one which will certainly help fix the problem. There are other things that are sorely needed, but addressing the symptom of the problem rather than the problem doesn't fix a damn thing.

I

Gender wage gaps still exist in countries with far better paternity leave systems than the U.S.

While it may sound nice, i'm not convinced that it would actually close the gap (even if there actually were one).

Mobility (Decisions for promotion etc) would still favor men because they don't have to leave the workforce to deliver a child.

[New Edom]

It's not "cognitive dissonance", it's just a matter of timings.
Feminism will deal with men's issues too: when women will have true equality, men's issues will disappear.
But before women reach true equality, men will suffer more and more due they're losing their privileges: this is expected, and it's a collateral effect, not a goal of feminism.
As long as men are privileged, they have issues, and these issues are secondary because men are, on the whole, privileged.
When men will be not privileged anymore, their issues will disappear.



That's the strategy of MRA, more misogyny?

The bolded is completly false.

Women have made great strides in recent decades with issues associated with gender roles, while men's situation has remained constant.

The whole "We'll get to you when we're done" comes off as incredibly condescending as well.

None of this matters to feminists. There is no real difference, to a feminist, between living in Saudi Arabia and living in Canada. Men might as well beat and kill women openly in the streets. Nothing men say or do is even a millionth good enough until all government, all business, all education, all major health services, all finances are run almost entirely by women with perhaps 5% men. Then they MIGHT consider that there are a few good men out there beyond the handful of Uncle Tom White Knights they drag out for their amusement. Other than that, it doesn't matter. Men need to do their own thing, be wary of government and high finance and avoid entanglements.

[Bigzoland]

The bolded is completly false.

Women have made great strides in recent decades with issues associated with gender roles, while men's situation has remained constant.

The whole "We'll get to you when we're done" comes off as incredibly condescending as well.

None of this matters to feminists. There is no real difference, to a feminist, between living in Saudi Arabia and living in Canada. Men might as well beat and kill women openly in the streets. Nothing men say or do is even a millionth good enough until all government, all business, all education, all major health services, all finances are run almost entirely by women with perhaps 5% men. Then they MIGHT consider that there are a few good men out there beyond the handful of Uncle Tom White Knights they drag out for their amusement. Other than that, it doesn't matter. Men need to do their own thing, be wary of government and high finance and avoid entanglements.

Which is pretty much why I don't take any "feminists" seriously. I'd even go as far to say that this is why a large portion of the population doesn't want to associate with the term feminism.

Disingenuous and misleading statistics (1 in 5 and 70 cents on the dollar) and using them as an argument to "teach men not to rape" doesn't come off as a genuine movement that seeks to eliminate the negatives of gender roles.

[New Edom]

None of this matters to feminists. There is no real difference, to a feminist, between living in Saudi Arabia and living in Canada. Men might as well beat and kill women openly in the streets. Nothing men say or do is even a millionth good enough until all government, all business, all education, all major health services, all finances are run almost entirely by women with perhaps 5% men. Then they MIGHT consider that there are a few good men out there beyond the handful of Uncle Tom White Knights they drag out for their amusement. Other than that, it doesn't matter. Men need to do their own thing, be wary of government and high finance and avoid entanglements.

Which is pretty much why I don't take any "feminists" seriously. I'd even go as far to say that this is why a large portion of the population doesn't want to associate with the term feminism.

Disingenuous and misleading statistics (1 in 5 and 70 cents on the dollar) and using them as an argument to "teach men not to rape" doesn't come off as a genuine movement that seeks to eliminate the negatives of gender roles.

No, it doesn't. No movement that has no common good will, that has leadership and educators that discourage empathy with others is altruistic beyond having some for its fellow believers. No thank you.

[Soldati Senza Confini]

It's not illogical at all.

It's a question, not a statement. I did not say "the courts are run by men, therefore they can't be bias against men". If I'd intended to say that it's what I would have said.

Instead I'm trying to see if anyone will tell me the reason why a primarily male dominated institution would be so bias against men.

Think of it like this. If I tell you: Why does 1+1=2? Does it mean I believe that 1+1 does not equal 2? No of course not. That's not how questions work.

Because of misandry and bias in favor of women.
Men lack in-group bias. They are bias in favor of women.
Women have an in-group bias in favor of eachother.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E2%80%9CW ... %9D_effect

The way to fix this is either with more misogyny in the world, or to decrease misandry and get women to be much more in favor of men, and men to be in favor of men more.

I think the reason you have trouble understanding how an institution full of men could be bias against men is because you assume men think the same way women do. They don't. They aren't as bias as women toward eachother.
This is how mostly male institutions can still discriminate against men and in favor of women, while mostly female institutions do the same.
It's a systemic problem with the way men are perceived and treated.

Both men and women need to address their misandry.

I sure hope you're not serious...

[Not a Bang but a Whimper]

All you have done is scream about how you are oppressed and how men keep you down, if that's not a victim complex, I don't know what is.

All you have done is scream about how you are oppressed and how equal rights for women keeps you down.

(Humans have a tendency to form closed groups):

http://www.laurakkerr.com/2014/05/04/loving-humanity/

The quote you were told to source read "Of course men are going to prioritise articles written by other men, humanity is fundamentally 'us versus them.'" Are you suggesting that sexism is natural on the basis of an assumption that, purely because of the existence of ingroups and outgroups, people must invariably sort themselves into as many groups as possible? And if so, how can we argue any nature behind division which exists solely and exclusively on the merits of socially constructed gender, which collapses through the deconstruction of the binary opposition? Or are you instead insinuating that preference of men's work over women's does not, in some way, constitute sexism? You cannot be legitimately arguing that all sexism is a conscious, deliberate decision, as we see through microaggressions the actions of sexism without deliberation and through subliminality the conveyance of sexist philosophy without the pretense of intentionality. Furthermore, to suggest that sexim must be intentional is to similarly advise that intentionality must be relevant which, as both the New Critics and the post-structuralists will avidly remind us, it is absolutely not, or else language would be a perfected system of communication by which no mistakes of meaning are made; we ought better to read and interpret what is written than seek for the supposedly true motivation of writing it -- do either, however, and you will inevitably find that preference of an individual purely on the basis of their sex is indicative of sexism.

Furthermore, the article identifies five causes of supposed "us versus them" mentality. Are stigmatization, inequity of care, maltreatment, violence, and genocide all natural occurrences, or do they arise from socially constructed events and institutions? Inevitably, none of these things can occur without the conceptualization of the Other. Curiously, another issue arises from self-identification and the refusal of otherness: to quote Michael Warner, "The modern system of sex and gender would not be possible without a disposition to interpret the difference between genders as the difference between self and Other. Having a sexual object of the opposite gender is taken to be the normal and paradigmatic form of an interest in the Other." With the understanding of the Other and the "us versus them" mentality of ingroups and outgroups arising stigmatization, inequity of care, maltreatment, violence, and genocide, are you then still to argue not only that men will "naturally" assume necessitation of work done by other men, but also that this is completely viable and not indicative of prejudice, sexism, or any at-large issue at all?

(Religion is dying in western countries):

http://www.is-there-a-god.info/blog/bel ... ern-world/

The article notes, "It is therefore difficult to say from this data how many atheists there are and whether their numbers are growing as secularisation predicts," "The International Bulletin of Missionary Research has data for more than a century that shows which beliefs are growing as a percentage of world population (Islam, Pentecostal Christians [and the "four major religions]) and which are declining... this data doesn’t tell us how atheism is doing," and "In the US, the numbers of unaffiliated are currently almost 20%, rising at about 1% a year, and greater among the young. However only 2.4% of these are atheist plus 3.3% agnostic, with the remaining 13.9% of the unaffiliated not identifying with any group," however, "Other studies around the world suggest that unbelief never gets above 40% in any country – many people who stop believing in a specific religion still believe in a “life force” or “universal spirit”." It observes "The secularisation thesis has been abandoned by most sociologists (though not all), because, they say, it hasn't happened. Berger and most other sociologists of religion have realised that their earlier thesis was based predominantly on European data and the assumption that most other countries would follow the European model... But they are now confident that the world is not generally following that model. For example, the increasingly affluent middle class in China is showing growing interest in christianity. And while the number of non-believers is growing in the US, they doubt it will follow Europe... Secularisation is more likely to mean pluralism with no dominant religion, rather than atheism. In most countries religion and modernity appear to be quite compatible."

To quote from John Micklethwait, as quoted in the article, "If there is any trend that can be discerned in the parts of the world that are most rapidly modernising, it is that secular belief systems are in decline and the old faiths are being reborn." The piece concludes that "It seems the future is not as certain as Jerry Coyne and other atheists hope. They have extrapolated from Europe’s past and the US present, but the experts think this is an inadequate, and probably wrong, basis for prediction."

In opposition to the idea, we see religion prominent in American politics, religion dominating and defining the existence of certain countries, fundamentalism present in far-Western Europe, violence in the name of religion in Europe, religious conservatism breaking past borders, social alienation by the strongly religious in a significant and present form, and heavy amounts of damage and numbers of casualties under religious extremism. The extreme does not speak for the whole lot, though. To observe the rest of the religious in Europe, the European Commission estimates 77% of Europeans believe in a God or spiritual force with a 3% margin. Lack of belief in a God or spiritual force is not widespread.

(Most males are stronger and taller than most women):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differ ... Physiology

To go to the root of this, your statement was that "the same principles that drive sexism in Europe are not the same as those that drive sexism in Nigeria." We can stipulate that the principles of essentialism drive sexism regardless of the region: from John Gray to Chinua Achebe we see the same gender essentialism ascribing inferior roles and attributes to women, however, in Caroline McCann's words, "a man represents both the positive and the neutral, as indicated by the common use of man to designate human beings in general." Countless studies document the existence and harmfulness of stereotype threat. Is this innate or determined? Work from Dar-Nimrod and Heine genetic theory, with an essentialist emphasis on determinism, supports discriminatory stereotypes. When determining legitimacy of essentialism, some suggest a three-pronged test: 1. Are the two control groups sufficiently representative of a random sampling of men and women such that the findings could be used to infer differences throughout the entire population? 2. Is the difference significant? Is the variability within gender not just as large as the variability between genders? 3. Is it reasonable to correlate larger size with greater function? To further criticize the concept, even where such differences do exist, why should such differences justify sexist oppression? Sexual dimorphism is irrelevant to the right to civil and social equality; inevitably, however, it is enforced as a principle, without doubt, as and as a driving force of sexism across the globe. Often it is even suggested that such gender essentialism is beneficial, which is untrue. See Myths Of Gender: Biological Theories About Women And Men, Anne-Fausto Sterling.

(Genders roles are natural, which explains why men are stereotypical providers and woman are stereotypical carers):

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... ently.html

This article discusses that "Scientists carried out experiments that showed men are better at judging faraway targets, while women are good at short-distance focusing." This concerns not the legitimacy, inherent considerations, naturalness, or existence of gender roles, but how well men and women can see up close and far away. While "pointing with a stick helps the brain to process distant information as if it is in near space" is an interesting factoid, it says nothing in the way of the existence or legitimacy or nature or inherence of gender roles. What is said about gender roles is their derivation from the binary opposition of masculinity contra femininity. Through the structuring of language we observe that language is defined in terms of opposites, see Lacan, Derrida, Saussure, Levi-Strauss, Butler, Maleki, Beauvoir, et al. This is most outstandingly defined in terms of the presence-absence dichotomy, where we further see, in Derrida's words, "a violent hierarchy" where by which one term in the binary opposition must govern the entire dichotomy; in that consideration does presence always find privilege in Western culture. See Borthwick's analysis of how this purveys in the binary opposition between men and women. But is the binary opposition natural?

Perhaps consider the Gerai people of the Dayak Indonesia, who make no distinction between what we consider men and women, even conceptualizing the sexual organs as the same; the Vanatinai of the South Pacific, whose culture has a total absence of gender roles, masculinity, or femininity; countless Native American societies which observe more than two genders, sometimes not only two-spirit identities but ones with no definite match to any contemporary Western genders; and Anne Fausto‐Sterling notes, "Even if we’ve overestimated by a factor of two, that still means a lot of intersexual children are born each year. At the rate of 1.7 percent, for example, a city of 300,000 people would have 5,100 people with varying degrees of intersexual development," indicating that sex, even, is not absolutely categorized as "male" and "female" in humans, and that it is not sex which we have applied to define gender, but gender which we have applied to define sex.

As Lois Tyson accounts, "In other cultures, gender systems are neither binary, like the gender system in force in the United States today, nor what might be called unitary—that is, without significant gender differentiation—like the two gender systems described above. In contrast, some cultures see gender as a system of multiple possibilities. As one example among many, consider the hundred or more North American Indian societies that had multiple gender systems, that is, systems consisting of more than two genders, especially prior to the takeover of the Americas by European colonizers. Native North American societies tended to define gender in ways specific to their own cultures, differing in what aspects of social life were considered primary in their conceptions of gender... In short, the whole idea that there are only two genders is based on the idea that there are only two sexes. However, researchers from a variety of fields have revealed that such is not the case: biological sex does not fit neatly into two separate, opposite categories. It would be more accurate to say that, following the European model, American society has imposed the two‐sex system despite the fact that this system does not fit a significant portion of the population. In other words, biological sex categories have not imposed the two‐gender system on Americans; rather, Americans have imposed the two‐gender system on biological sex categories."

No, it proves that per chance the most recognized response as one claiming the idea. Source that this was the very first article on the rapes.

It's recognizable because it's a popular belief. If it wasn't, people wouldn't know what it is.[/quote]
Aliraza Javaid cites 70 studies on male rape in addition to suggesting solutions to the problem of how police in the UK handle male victims of rape. While many viewed male rape as a myth in 1992, to-day, the first articles which appear when searching the term "male rape" on the internet all draw attention to the existence of the issue of male rape, among them Rape Is Not just A Women's Issue, When Men Are Raped, My Own Rape Shows How Much We Get Wrong About These Attacks, and The Reality of Male Rape. Men being raped is a recognizable issue because it's popularly understood. If it wasn't people wouldn't know what it is.

http://www.salon.com/2012/05/03/who_says_men_cant_be_raped/

The article states that the first source to pick up the story was The Mirror, which referred to the woman an "insatiable lover" rather than the rapist she is.

"As first reported in the Canadian site the Province last month" opens the article. In its final paragraph it describes the Mirror's writing of the events as "horrible tabloid hackery." The writer of the article, Natalie Evans, does not have a particularly good track record with these things and has been consistently criticized for her sexist portrayal of male victims of violence as anything but victims. To quote some other instances where The Daily Mirror has been less than reliable: "In May 2004, the Daily Mirror published what it claimed were photos of British soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners at an unspecified location in Iraq. The decision to publish the photos, subsequently shown to be hoaxes, led to Morgan's sacking as editor on 14 May 2004. The Daily Mirror then stated that it was the subject of a "calculated and malicious hoax". The newspaper issued a statement apologising for the printing of the pictures. The paper's deputy editor, Des Kelly, took over as acting editor during the crisis. The tabloid's rival, The Sun, offered a £50,000 reward for the arrest and conviction of those accused of faking the Mirror photographs.
"In November 2007, the Daily Mirror paid damages to Sir Andrew Green after having likened him and his group MigrationWatch UK to the Ku Klux Klan and Nazi Party in September of that year. The newspaper admitted that such allegations were "untrue".
"In February 2008 both the Daily and the Sunday Mirror implied that TV presenter Kate Garraway was having an affair. She sued for libel, receiving an apology and compensation payment in April 2008.
"On 18 September 2008, David Anderson, a British sports journalist writing for the Mirror, repeated a claim deriving from vandalism on Wikipedia's entry for Cypriot football team AC Omonia, which asserted that their fans were called "The Zany Ones" and liked to wear hats made from discarded shoes. The claim was part of Anderson's match preview ahead of AC Omonia's game with Manchester City, which appeared in the web and print versions of the Mirror, with the nickname also quoted in subsequent editions on 19 September.
"On 12 May 2011, the High Court of England and Wales granted the Attorney General permission to bring a case for contempt against The Sun and the Daily Mirror for the way they had reported on the arrest of a person of interest in the Murder of Joanna Yeates. On 29 July, the Court ruled that both newspapers had been in contempt of court, fining the Daily Mirror £50,000 and The Sun £18,000.
"On 19 July 2011 the Mirror published an article labelling comedian Frankie Boyle as a racist. He later sued for defamation and libel, winning £54,650 in damages and a further £4,250 for a claim about his departure from Mock the Week. The Mirror had argued he was "forced to quit" but this was found to be libellous by the court. It is not viable to state that the Mirror reflects any vague majority of the population.

Indicate where I state men can't be raped.

You agreed with the feminist re-definition, which specially leaves out men.

Perhaps you are referencing Brownmiller's definition, that rape is "a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear." However, in denying this you deny two vital considerations: firstly, the intention of this definition. Under the shallow interpretation, one which is close-minded and seeks to read sources it cites purely for excerpts which might benefit one's poor hopes of a delirious argument, one expects Brownmiller to define rape in the terms of all people, to state what sexual assault is for men, women, boys, girls, non-binary people, white people, colored people, rich people, poor people, and everyone in between. This is blatantly a false, poor, and at worst malicious misreading of the premises of Brownmiller's definition. She presents and argues this definition of rape in her book Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape, which, unsurprisingly as written in 1975, is written to discuss the issues of women. Not men. This is a major issue many take with feminism to-day, which is further truly only indicative of sexism: in our everyday lives, men expect women to be subservient to them, as Beauvoir compares the male-female relationship to Hegel's master-slave relationship in The Second Sex. In this regard, such expectations purvey even to the fight for equal rights, within which men expect women to serve them, not only cutting back on the engagement in activism, theory, and education in order to determine their own rights but also in expecting them to pick up the end for seeking to alleviate societal illnesses faced by men. Unfortunately for those with such expectations, not only do women who face discrimination and oppression on a daily basis not take well to those who mock their struggles, but they also begin to do significantly less in the way of strategizing their movement to aid in equality for both of the sexes, and instead enjoy exhibiting their overt competence and intelligence by deliberately taking the opportunity to do nothing for men's rights. Furthermore what the so-called men's "rights" pseudo-activists don't seem to understand is that feminism, by its inherent design, already seeks the equal liberation of men from gender roles in its intentions to abolish the gender binary and void the concentration of gender roles as they exist in contemporary society: whereas the men who expect women to serve them demand that women serve them by attacking the superficial regards of problems, which ultimately is unsustainable and leads to short-lasting failures such as "meninism," (which, hilariously, is marked wrong by spellcheck) feminists who can competently analyze their legitimate empowerment to educate themselves on more than three hundred years of feminist theory find themselves in highly regarded positions and, in fact, accomplishing more than many self-proclaimed "anti-feminists" would like to admit. How, then, does this factor into Brownmiller's definition of rape? Inherently, men expect women's studies to drop the "wo" at its beginning and focus on men's studies. Through patriarchal institutions are feminist theorists told they are sexists for not accounting for men in their writings; they are threatened with death, they are told they write "pseudo-science," they are told that they are legally equal and therefore as equal as they will ever become, and they are told that, in writing for women, they deliberately exclude and harm men. all of these claims can be quite safely disregarded, in the brilliant words of structural theorist Northrop Frye. Feminism and its writers write definitions as they pertain to women. These definitions are not meant to be put into law but into theory, and by the empowerment of women they are indeed designed to make those who benefit vastly from the patriarchy feel very, very threatened.

Suffrage, freedom to divorce, significantly less fear of being raped and murdered.

All of which existed before feminism.

The earliest writer of relations between the sexes, and coincidentally gender equality according to Simone de Beauvoir, was French writer Christine de Pizan in 1405, when she wrote a response to Jean de Meun's Romance of the Rose. Pizan counters Meun on women by suggesting a city composed of women, citing a wide array of women throughout history, each an element of her theses. Other writers include Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa and Modesta di Pozzo di Forzi in the 16th century and Hannah Woolley, Juana Inés de la Cruz, Marie Le Jars de Gournay, Anne Bradstreet, François Poullain de la Barre, and Margaret Cavendish in the 17th Century. So begins feminism in the Western Hemisphere.

From WikiPedia, "The seed for the first Woman's Rights Convention in the United States in Seneca Falls, New York was planted in 1840, when Elizabeth Cady Stanton met Lucretia Mott at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London. The conference refused to seat Mott and other women delegates from the United States of America because of their sex. In 1851, Stanton met temperance worker Susan B. Anthony, and shortly the two would be joined in the long struggle to secure the vote for women in the United States. In 1868 Anthony encouraged working women from the printing and sewing trades in New York, who were excluded from men's trade unions, to form Workingwomen's Associations. As a delegate to the National Labor Congress in 1868, Anthony persuaded the committee on female labor to call for votes for women and equal pay for equal work. The men at the conference deleted the reference to the vote." On the pure merit of this being coined a "Woman's Rights Convention" we can, to wit, observe this as a part of feminism. How are we to argue that feminism was not an integral element of the women's suffrage movement? This is as if we were to argue that black suffrage in no way incorporated the presence of ideas that blacks and whites are equal -- it is absurd and it is outright wrong.

In Medieval Europe, women could not divorce without losing their legal status as a human being. Once married, a woman was explicitly and exclusively defined in the terms of relation to her husband, prior to which she was defined only in terms of her relation to her father or her brothers. If divorced, the woman ceased to exist, both socially and legally. France only witnessed divorce for women under the Napoleonic Code, after French Feminism had taken strong hold of legal suggestive power in the country during the French Revolution. Before 1857 women could not divorce without paying an incredible fee, making it only affordable to the rich; even after the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857, women still lacked the right to divorce without paying a fine, only then slightly lower. It would not be until 1973 that women could divorce freely. Until 1868, Japanese women had no ability to divorce unless they went into exile for several years and pleaded that Shinto temples allow them to obtain divorces. This arduous route, however, did not stop them. And in India, not until 1955, with the passage of the Hindu Marriage Act, were women granted the right to divorce, and even then only conditionally. In the Philippines, women are still fighting for the right to initiate divorce.

Since 1990, sexual assault has declined by more than 50%.

Feminism is about the empowerment of women, not of men. Stop trying to hijack the movement.

It was originally about the empowerment of women, but that has become the empowerment of women even if it discriminates against men.

Often, when men note the empowerment of women, they fear for their very existence. This, perhaps, arises from the inextricable connection of masculinity to a patriarchy which thrives on the systemic oppression of women. Often, where the numbers between men and women are equal, men sustain a tendency to suggest that women are severely outnumbering men in that situation: a similar experience occurred not long ago in the Writing Discussion thread, where several claimed that there was an incredible preponderance of women contra men in the young adult writing community, that female writers severely outnumbered male writers and that female characters severely outnumbered male characters therein. This claim was easily refuted with a study which examined the winners of the most prominent young adult fiction award over the course of the past several decades, which was indicative of an equivalent presence between both men and women writing young adult novels and women and men appearing in said novels. Elsewhere in society does this idea manifest, often the continual expansion of women in daily life being viewed as women "taking over" or "asserting superiority:" something looked down upon not because those are not things to be done in society, as they would assuredly be in poor taste from anyone, but because those are the duties of men, as we especially witnessed in reformation after the First World War, particularly in Europe, where women took on a presence in the workforce as the men of the nations were at war and then, post-war, those same women declined and further refused to step down from their places in the workforce. Understandably (but not quite) this was looked down upon by men of the time. So we see the same here; in fact, later on you're going to cite that the workforce is composed 40% of women, as if this is an awful thing that ought to be combatted. You are going to decline to note that the populations are equal outside of employment. You will cite gender quotas, too, but will decline to note that women are still not equally represented in the workforce, still not equally paid (though you will have bullshit to attempt to state something or other against this demonstrability), and that prior to gender quotas did we witness the very focus on sex rather than skill that you claim, unverifiably, we face to-day.

but only fights for equality at the unfair expense of men

(Gender quotas are discriminatory):

http://blog.global-economic-symposium.o ... iminatory/

To quote from the article discussed, much likely to to the distaste of those claiming gender discrimination is affected by the mandate, "In contrast to the prequota variation in female directors used in this article, Matsa and Miller primarily use a firm’s form of legal organization (public versus private) in 2006 to proxy for exogenous variation in board changes mandated by the quota. Based on existing survey evidence, they argue that newly appointed female directors increased costs because they are more altruistic and long-term–oriented than male directors. However, as discussed, the quota does not provide a way to separately identify gender effects from the large changes to the age and experience of boards that we document.
Next, by providing some of the first evidence on gender mandates in corporate governance, this article also expands on previous research on mandates for under-represented minorities in political settings. Pande (2003) finds that local governments in India redistribute wealth toward the ethnic minority groups that are elected by mandate. Similarly, Chattopadhyay and Duflo (2004) find that gender mandates for political representation in India lead to greater infrastructure spending preferred by women. Though the Norwegian quota does not allow us to separately identify whether changes in corporate policies are driven by gender preferences or experience differences, we find no evidence that women CEOs are more likely to be appointed following the board quota. Our article is also related to Beaman et al. (2009), which finds that gender mandates in India change voters’ perceptions of female leaders. Women are more likely to run and win an unregulated election if previous female leaders were elected by mandate. Though persistently low percentages of female CEOs and chairpersons suggest that the quota has not changed perceptions of business women in Norway, it is too early to be definitive. Finally, our results inform the policy debate surrounding the increased movement of national legislatures toward boardroom gender quotas. Table I presents a summary of laws that regulate the gender of directors by country. As of May 2011, Spain, Iceland, and France have passed gender quota laws, and Belgium, the Netherlands, and Italy have pending quota laws. Quotas are being or have been seriously discussed in Sweden, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Canada. Additionally, many countries have recently incorporated recommendations for gender equality in their corporate governance codes or disclosure regulations. In developed economies around the world, boardroom gender quotas are quickly becoming the norm, not the exception. Our results suggest that though these rules are effective at creating gender diversity, there is a substantial cost to shareholders if the new female directors lack the experience of the exiting male directors. Thus, our article highlights the importance of understanding why there are relatively few women with comparable top-level management experience as men, which is addressed in Bertrand, Goldin, and Katz (2010) and Herr and Wolfram (2010)."

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/letters/gender-quotas-are-discriminatory-29450089.html

So go the opinion of Rob in Dublin, who doesn't cite any facts. The International Business Report, on the other hand, shows that the percentage of world business leaders in favor of gender quotas has increased from 37% in 2013 to 45% in 2014. Plus, outside of Europe, 68% of leaders surveyed in Latin American and 71% of those in Asia support gender quotas. Some other supporters include Christine LaGarde, International Monetary fund director, who says "I soon realized that unless we had targets, if not quotas, there was no way we were going to make the right step," and Renault-Nissan Alliance’s CEO Carlos Ghosn, drawing attention to the fact that "when you have two percent of your management pool made by women, there is no way with big principles and good attitudes that you are going to change this radically. Quotas are important. Why? Because quotas lead to action. Action means hiring, training, coaching, and putting in the process of the company the systematic decision, forcing the selection of female potential at all levels."

It wouldn't be a "privilege" to not be raped and killed. It's not a privilege to be raped less than we were in the past.

I'm not saying that, I said that woman's rights has advanced tremendously over the last few decades and that you should recognise that, compared to non-western woman, you are greatly privileged.

One peculiar argument revolving around the reinforcement of the patriarchal institution is that women should stop fighting for their rights in first world countries on the grounds that women in third world countries are significantly less advantaged; that efforts to secure rights for one group should be diverted to secure different rights for a different group, typically an economically disadvantaged one. Firstly, we must examine the motivation for such argumentation: men who benefit from patriarchal institutions so imposed by the privileging of masculinity by the binary opposition will inevitably prefer that these constructed institutions are not deconstructed or ignored. One way to accomplish this is to manipulate, through aggression, intimidation, and threats so intrinsic to masculinity, those lobbying and active for the rights of women into believing that the maliciously-intentioned men opposed to the rights of women are in fact merely sympathetic for other causes, claiming that, because stated other causes seem to indicate greater necessity of observation by some standards, any and all other movements should be aborted effective immediately. This is akin to suggesting that any person in a first world country is useless if they decline to drop their entire lifestyle and move to the developing world to aid in that development; akin, even, perhaps to what so-called men's "rights" pseudo-activists claims occurs constantly and continually in a process by which they implore feminism devalues them if they do not fight for women's rights (a noticeably unsourced claim based purely on emotional appeal, theory in absentia). Furthermore we must consider why this manipulation is completely devoid of meaning and ought to be ignored for more than our mental health. As Rand, Nietzsche, and other ethical egoists note, service to oneself if the highest moral obligation, and if not that then at least a necessity. One must allow oneself to live before living for the sake of others. Thereby, if one derives pleasure from fighting for their rights and, despite the vague and harassing calls of implications that they invoke apocalypses, refrain from the violation of others' rights, for what purpose should they abandon their entire lifestyle in favor of allowing the struggles of women they know to grow worse in order to potentially aid others whom are much more difficult to help, much less likely to be helped, and ultimately unknown to, untouching to, and far removed and distant from the contemporary postmodern American activist?

and will continue to grow more privileged

(Woman make up 40% of the workforce, a number that is set to grow):

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/05/ ... nner-moms/

Women make up 50% of the entire globe, a number which has not changed for thousands on thousands of years, and which is not set to grow or decline at any point in the near or far future. However, women do not seem to make up 50% of the workforce. This is the result of coercive societal expectation, whereas one might frequently argue that 10% of women perhaps deliberately choose to devote their lives to motherhood rather than to work, we are intelligent people and by that very regard alone should we sustain the competence to observe that by no means is any "deliberate" decision deliberate at all, especially for a woman; the external societal influences are much stronger on a woman than on anyone else, as evidenced by the subordination of women to men socially and civilly, under which we recognize that the attributes prescribed to femininity result in unavoidable adherence to submissiveness, openness, and dependence. Women cannot escape microaggressions which irrefutably lead to their decision to opt for motherhood rather than other aspirations; for evidence, see the fact that this has purveyed horrifically in the past and only in recent decades has changed, and that now we are merely witnessing it on a smaller scale in the West and can still point to its widespread occurrence in other nations, some developing, many not; consider also the number of men opting to sacrifice work in favor of fatherhood, inevitably small as a result of the lack of influence to which men are forcibly subjected and thus reducing the coercion of men into fatherhood; perhaps the only situation in which we can argue we see coercion into fatherhood is in the legal system, under which child support is often mandated, but also under the legal system do we see the influence of the patriarchy, which intrinsically assumes that child rearing is the work of women and thus ought to be continuously ascribed to women, regardless of whether they are educated or influenced on whether they legitimately should or should not desire such responsibilities or not, but we digress.

(The rape crisis and 20% chance of being raped statistic is a myth):

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/eco ... pe-culture

This isn't hard.
https://www.rainn.org/statistics
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-y ... een-raped/
http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/20/living/fe ... new-study/
http://www.rccmsc.org/resources/get-the-facts.aspx
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/cri ... ault-stat/
http://www.woar.org/resources/sexual-as ... istics.php

(The pay gap is actually a myth based on false statistics):

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christina ... 73804.html

Let's discuss this.
"How many times have you heard that, for the same work, women receive 77 cents for every dollar a man earns? This alleged unfairness is the basis for the annual Equal Pay Day observed each year about mid-April to symbolize how far into the current year women have to work to catch up with men's earnings from the previous year. If the AAUW is right, Equal Pay Day will now have to be moved to early January."
This entire article is written on the basis of the idea that, because the wage gap is not massive, it is not a problem. It is easy to understand why this is absurd: to lose ten cents to a dollar adds up to a nearly $10,000 fine on women who work 40 hours a week for 50 years at $10 an hour. A fine exclusively for being women. Those who benefit from patriarchal institutions like to argue that, because the wage gap in very specific positions at the same company is close, it is not an existing issue. Two problems arise: first, the apparent acceptance that women do not deserve to be paid as much as men for the work they perform. Because it is not a drastic difference, sexists will argue, it is almost as if there is not a difference at all. This is a very easy claim to be made by those not paying the $10,000 fine. The next problem is composed out of the assumptions made on how methodology must be carried out. These people refuse to acknowledge the wage gap in its indication of sexism rampant throughout society implicatively and instead defend the baseless and unsupported arguments that research on the wage gap between men and women is only legitimate under a set of very specific, patriarchally-defined circumstances which assure we are at that point examining the gap for more PR discrepancies than we are for sexism.

"The AAUW has now joined ranks with serious economists who find that when you control for relevant differences between men and women (occupations, college majors, length of time in workplace) the wage gap narrows to the point of vanishing. The 23-cent gap is simply the average difference between the earnings of men and women employed "full time." What is important is the "adjusted" wage gap-the figure that controls for all the relevant variables. That is what the new AAUW study explores."
Who is the author to define the so-called "relevant variables" in these situations? The gap of 23 cents is indicative of the coercion of women by patriarchal establishment within society to take certain jobs -- which, often as a result of being "women's" jobs, are inherently devalued, and thereby paid less for their services and work. Another "relevant variable" according to the author is place of employment. Consider the distinction between a woman performing a job at one company and a man performing the job at the other -- in general, as the study from the American Association of University Women notes, the service provided by the woman will be assumed to be of inherently lesser worth and thereby the woman will be afforded a lower paycheck than the man.

""In fact," says the National Women's Law Center, "authoritative studies show that even when all relevant career and family attributes are taken into account, there is still a significant, unexplained gap in men's and women's earnings." Not quite. What the 2009 Labor Department study showed was that when the proper controls are in place, the unexplained (adjusted) wage gap is somewhere between 4.8 and 7 cents. The new AAUW study is consistent with these findings. But isn't the unexplained gap, albeit far less than the endlessly publicized 23 cents, still a serious injustice? Shouldn't we look for ways to compel employers to pay women the extra 5-7 cents? Not before we figure out the cause. The AAUW notes that part of the new 6.6-cent wage-gap may be owed to women's supposedly inferior negotiating skills -- not unscrupulous employers. Furthermore, the AAUW's 6.6 cents includes some large legitimate wage differences masked by over-broad occupational categories. For example, its researchers count "social science" as one college major and report that, among such majors, women earned only 83 percent of what men earned. That may sound unfair... until you consider that "social science" includes both economics and sociology majors."
When masculinists must stoop to their lowest to decry the very existence of well-documented, proven and demonstrably present sexism, they will go so far as to suggest essentialist slogans to the effect of that the "wage-gap may be owed to women's supposedly inferior negotiating skills." It is curious that, while attempting to argue that sexism is absent and void from the world, that these very sexists will exemplify outright sexism in its most blatant form, just as this article immediately assumes, from the headline of all places, that the wage gap is absent. You should talk of academic bias; this article makes it clear verbatim that its author views the inferiority of women in fields as a legitimate rationale for paying women less.

"Economics majors (66 percent male) have a median income of $70,000; for sociology majors (68 percent female) it is $40,000. Economist Diana Furchtgott-Roth of the Manhattan Institute has pointed to similar incongruities. The AAUW study classifies jobs as diverse as librarian, lawyer, professional athlete, and "media occupations" under a single rubric--"other white collar." Says Furchtgott-Roth: "So, the AAUW report compares the pay of male lawyers with that of female librarians; of male athletes with that of female communications assistants. That's not a comparison between people who do the same work." With more realistic categories and definitions, the remaining 6.6 gap would certainly narrow to just a few cents at most."
And, we are very likely to find, due to the preponderance of women in sociology and men in economics we witness the work of economists being valued more than that of sociologists. And, furthermore, are the authors of this heavily opinionated article so unable to overcome their biases that they cannot even engage in a simple role reversal, or are they so obstructed by their sexism that they cannot come to fathom women in higher positions? So, the AAUW report compares the pay of female lawyers with that of male librarians; of female athletes with that of male communications assistants. That's not a comparison between people who do the same work.

"Could the gender wage gap turn out to be zero? Probably not. The AAUW correctly notes that there is still evidence of residual bias against women in the workplace. However, with the gap approaching a few cents, there is not a lot of room for discrimination. And as economists frequently remind us, if it were really true that an employer could get away with paying Jill less than Jack for the same work, clever entrepreneurs would fire all their male employees, replace them with females, and enjoy a huge market advantage."
This is outright and blatantly false. If an employer could get away with paying their employees less, then they would -- but they cannot. They can pay some of their employees less, so why not the minority -- only 40% or so -- that they immediately and effectively perceive as bringing less worth to the company with less valuable work? This is exactly what occurs.

cannot escape being viewed as an object of sexual gratification

The only biologically purpose of humans is to reproduce, so this might be something that we will never escape. Both men and women are sex objects, this isn't exclusive to females.

Because that's not the purpose of feminism.

Yes, the purpose of feminism is to give women as many rights as possible, but they care nothing for anyone else.

My presence at a school and my access to the Internet don't factor into who decides to murder me because I deny them romance.

Actually, you'd probably be less likely to be killed if you were with people than if you were alone, so your privilege therefore protects you to a degree.

"I do not find your attempts to analyze me amusing." Stop looking to be amused.

I'm not. I just want to understand why feminism is so hostile to men, when all we (Well, me at least) want is to live equal, happy lives.

You refuse to let me seek equal rights with the claim that my being viewed as equal to you devalues you.

I'm not stopping you from doing anything, and I certainly didn't say that equality for women would make me feel lesser.

Stop playing the perpetually accused martyr of the blessed masculine crusade.

I'm not playing anyone. To be fair, I could ask you to stop playing the perpetually accused martyr of the blessed feminine crusade.

That's egalitarianism

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictiona ... itarianism

What the fuck do you think it's supposed to do?

Establish true gender/sex equality, according to:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/feminism

No shit. Feminism seeks to empower women. Not already empowered men.

There are areas in which men are not empowered, and feminism ignores these areas.

And sourcing it, something you're incredibly incapable of doing.

I don't think so, not after this post.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/patriarchy

Feminists cry about patriarchy while ignoring that the gender gap is nearly non-existent, that they make up 40% of breadwinners, and there are quotas in their favour.

(Radical feminists oppose the current system that privileges them greatly and offers them equality):

http://womenshistory.about.com/od/femin ... minism.htm

What alternative is there when there is no such thing as the patriarchy?

(Perhaps a biased source, but one nonetheless):

http://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/th ... isproof-2/

Females can succeed in any field they wish

(A woman speaks about how men and woman can succeed side by side):

http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/news/1336494/

Elaborate how, if a woman has to work fifty times as hard to achieve success, patriarchy is demonstrably absent.

What are you basing this on? I Googled it and found nothing.

Women get special privileges because of their gender

(Gender quotas):

http://www.quotaproject.org/aboutQuotas.cfm

(Court bias):

http://blogs.findlaw.com/law_and_life/2 ... women.html

(False rape allegations):

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/ ... pen.2.html

Do you know what patriarchy is?

You should by now.

The agreed upon definition is that radical feminism is fighting for equality

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_feminism

As I have already shown, male superiority no longer exists, so radical feminism is a hallow cause.

(Or any radical feminist article, really) will show, is actually untrue

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism_a ... uperiority
http://www.womenagainstmen.com/media/fe ... group.html

and seeks to demonize men and their equality

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism_a ... uperiority

The feminist definition was unnecessary and harmful

(Possibly a biased source, but it has some good points):

http://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/fe ... rd-rapeib/[/quote]

I'll deal with the rest of this to-morrow morning.

[Ostroeuropa]

Because of misandry and bias in favor of women.
Men lack in-group bias. They are bias in favor of women.
Women have an in-group bias in favor of eachother.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E2%80%9CW ... %9D_effect

The way to fix this is either with more misogyny in the world, or to decrease misandry and get women to be much more in favor of men, and men to be in favor of men more.

I think the reason you have trouble understanding how an institution full of men could be bias against men is because you assume men think the same way women do. They don't. They aren't as bias as women toward eachother.
This is how mostly male institutions can still discriminate against men and in favor of women, while mostly female institutions do the same.
It's a systemic problem with the way men are perceived and treated.

Both men and women need to address their misandry.

I sure hope you're not serious...

I am, it seems obvious.
If women are ahead, you either need to drag them down, or lift men up. Obviously the latter is preferable.

[Forsher]

That's illogical.

You are fundamentally assuming that gender is the single most important factor in the decision making of these groups. You are, in fact, claiming that none of these people do their jobs properly (which, to be fair, may be true to some extent or another). It's the exact sort of wrong thinking that assumes that person of X category can only be represented in Y respect by someone of X category. You remove all individual agency.

It's not illogical at all.

It's a question, not a statement. I did not say "the courts are run by men, therefore they can't be bias against men". If I'd intended to say that it's what I would have said.

Instead I'm trying to see if anyone will tell me the reason why a primarily male dominated institution would be so bias against men.

Think of it like this. If I tell you: Why does 1+1=2? Does it mean I believe that 1+1 does not equal 2? No of course not. That's not how questions work.

Think of it like this: you ask a question when you don't know the answer. Or, you ask a question for some other purpose such as, say, rhetoric. In this case, we have a question that looks a hell of a lot like rhetoric. The only problem is that after the reasoning apparent in a rhetorical interpretation of your post has been called illogical* you come along and say that it is just a coincidence that it looks like you've set up a rhetorical device. I find that difficult to believe, however, as I don't really have any strong reason not to, I will accept that it's not some rhetorical device. But that doesn't mean that what I wrote isn't true or that it's irrelevant.

The thing is, the fact that you think there is a question to ask is telling. One's assumptions about how the world works are evident in the way that one talks about things. For instance, if one was to read Jean de Joinville's Life of St Louis, one would notice a lot of things but let's pay attention to two particlar things. One, he talks about the kings of England and France as being at war with each other (as persons). Two, Louis IX literally risks a civil war to stop one of his nobles marrying the daughter of another noble because that other noble had been a key player in an uprising against him. In other words, politics was intensely personal (if it wasn't, then marriage would not have worked as a potential solution).

To us, these incidents don't really make sense. We read them and we can't just ignore them without comment because we don't share the same mindset as Joinville and the people he was writing about. Joinville, in contrast, doesn't comment on them because they are a fundamental assumption in the way he thinks the world works. But, back to us, we don't think of war between countries as a war between the leaders of said countries (because we understand the idea of country very differently), and seeing it there is going to make us think, "Well, that's interesting." Likewise, we see the marriage thing and go, "What, is he nuts?" It's a massive risk to take when, given how the historical actors understood things, it would avoided the possibility of inter-noble conflict. Fundamentally, people like your or me who were born in the 20th Century, just don't share the same assumptions a French aristocrats that lived several centuries ago. And that's the important thing: what we say and what we don't say, says stuff beyond the literal meaning.

Thus, your question is like Joinville's descriptions of those events. That the question exists in the way it does, only happens because you think in a particular way. And I am telling you that that way of thinking is illogical for the reasons I described. This applies whether or not it was a rhetoric or just a plain question.

In other words, I am saying that if one thinks logically about it, there is reason to think that there is a need to ask that question. Why? Because one's logical thinking sees that "courts aren't biased against men" does not follow from "these institutions are male dominated". To ask that question, you must first develop an argument that says that the question's logic is coherent.

That fact that you don't understand this doesn't speak well of you.

Not all questions are asked due to not understanding something. I asked my question to find his perspective on it.

Some of the MRM people on this forum seem to believe the cause of this is women and/or feminism which is very strange to me.

Presenting: the third interpretation of the same question.

In this case, we can take the above reasoning and use it in the sense of: well, you didn't commentate on the illogical nature of the situation your post sought clarity on...

If there is a bias against men for certain types of judgement it's not because of sexism against men. It's because of sexism against women.

See, the inherent female centric perspective of feminism.

I have, in the past, suggested that one of the reasons for the pay-gap (which I feel does exist at some level, even when controlling for relevant variables and, especially, when comparing like for like), is that employer's perceive the risk associated with hiring a woman as being higher because she'll bugger to become a mum. That's not really fair. But the root problem is more that men are perceived as not being parents... it's just not a modern assumption about family life.

So, you see, this female perspective of feminism not only means that it is not really suitable for dealing with issues relating to males, but it also doesn't help feminism and feminists fight the good fight for women, either.

But, is there any validity, in general, of thinking about court bias against men as being a result of sexism against women? Well, on one hand it is really the other side of the same coin... you can see it like this from a logical point of view (because, apparently, I now really care about logic). Although, I also realise I agree with Seangoli here, so maybe it's not. Luckily, I have a different point: the best way to think about things is the way that best helps generate better outcomes for people and society.

How do you stop women from being perceived as being more motherly? Do you spend all your time working to try and attach negative connotations to female parenting? Do you got out and spend all your time making the Guardian and HuffPo and CNN or Al Jazeera disproportionately report cases of female paedophilia and abuse? Because, that might take. You might get those sentiments to ingrain themselves to such an extent that you would see that you get greater balance in custody cases. However, this is all very crab bucket. It's self-evidently stupid. Why would you want to do this? Put it in another context, why would you want to fix the pay gap by paying men less? Hopefully that's equally self-evidently stupid. Maybe you could do it some other way. Maybe I can't, right now, think of a more beneficial way of using "sexism against women" as the problem to solve the problem.

What, to me, seems better and more logically reached, is to consider this as an issue of sexism towards males (but not necessarily misandry because, you know, both misogyny and misandry are grossly over-used terms that, under their definitions, don't encompass all sexism). Why? Well, then you're taking a positive approach. Instead of dragging everyone down to get them to the same level (when the level that one group is at is a good thing), you are trying to raise one up. There is, in fact, a quote from Inception that, to my mind, covers why this is probably more likely to work: "I think positive emotion trumps negative emotion every time." And if you want to see an American film quote that helps shows an aspect of the problem described aboverefer to about a minute ten of this trailer.

Men aren't the dominant class in the west.

Let's talk about privilege. In general, someone who is wealthy is more privileged than anyone below them. However, this can be distorted by legal methods that potentially allow one to have wealth but not really to do anything with it, if one belongs to certain groups. That's unlikely, it makes more sense for such prejudiced societies to seize the wealth. It is also not to say, that someone who is wealthy cannot have a hell of a lot of problems. If enough people want to make life for people like you crap, wealth can only do so much and may well end up being a curse if, in general, there is an association between the group one belongs to and a lack of wealth (think: too black to be white and too rich to be black, although there are other reasons to be in a fix akin to this).

So, what can you take from that? You can basically say that a wealthy, male of the dominant ethnicity and religion is really able to define normal. That is the dominant class. Everyone else is, to some extent, a departure from that "normal" (which, of course, is never normal), and the further away you are the worse it is. But the variables involved (wealth, ethnicity, religion, gender, location also actually, maybe some other things) interact so it's difficult to say, in the US today, whether or not the least privileged is a rural Black Muslim woman with a lot of wealth or a poor, male, Protestant Asian. But, then, why are you interested in this question at all Forsher? Uh, I don't know, doesn't seem that useful... so shut up about it and move on.

Umm ok, but then how for example is (assuming it is real and unjust) the pay gap between men women a harm to men? Oh no mr boss man please don't pay me more for doing the exact same job as my female colleague. I am so burdened and oppressed by the patriarchy, giving me 30% more just for being a man.

What are you trying to say? Have I missed some previous posts of yours that establish context?

The pay gap harms men in the sense that it helps contribute to the survival of "men as bread winner" as a social idea and the ridicule of the "house husband". There is also its being bad for society in general, of which, men are a part. But, why would you want to be framing the pay gap in terms of male issues?

So I return to, what is your point?

If you want to reduce the pay gap, you need to first address why women are more likely to take extended breaks from their career, and then address those problems. Demanding better pay and that's it doesn't actually fix the problem. It's a child's way of looking at the world.I

Ah, of course. I reason that I didn't think of this earlier because I was interpreting the response differently... from the perspective of why employers do something as opposed to the "why women are more likely to take extended breaks from their career" thing here.

To an extent, it's not really too different a way of framing things because, as we see, it is also addressed with broadly the same suggestion. Which reminds me, the disclaimers used by Seangoli also need to be applied to what I wrote above: risk isn't the entire reason and addressing the risk in the context of parenting isn't the entirety of solving the risk cause.

Gender wage gaps still exist in countries with far better paternity leave systems than the U.S.

While it may sound nice, i'm not convinced that it would actually close the gap (even if there actually were one).

Mobility (Decisions for promotion etc) would still favor men because they don't have to leave the workforce to deliver a child.

Paternity leave is only part of it. Maternity Leave is, as one realises intuitively, really what enables a mother to leave work towards the end of a pregnancy and in the first few months/weeks. However, a woman could mostly keep working until much closer up and return pretty quickly (obviously the type of work affects these times, and you also need to account for not all pregnancies being the same and equally arduous). Basically, not long after a woman is sent home they are probably mostly able to do some work (again, dependent on the exact reasons for why they go home), assuming there is no post-natal depression or any other more mental health related reason. This usually doesn't happen because most mothers-to-be don't opt to adopt out their offspring, which means that there is baby-centric things to happen post birth.

It just so happens that the mother doesn't really need to be the one doing the post-birth things. Breastfeeding can be accomplished through stored breast-milk and can (from very young) be substituted with formula (assuming it isn't subject terrorist threats or infected with some sort of thing: don't buy NZ made folks*).

So, in this sense, mobility wise, you could theoretically accomplish it mostly through weekends and accumulated holiday time, assuming that you have a pretty good estimate of the due date (which, sadly, you wouldn't know for certain until you give birth... due dates are, for the unaware, estimates).

Oh, and because I've run out of battery, my point briefly is that you really need an expectation that dads-to-be will, in fact, be fathers, even if you have paternity leave. And, as Seangoli already said, maternity is not the only cause for the unexplained gap.

*Off colour humour at its worst.

[Soldati Senza Confini]

I sure hope you're not serious...

I am, it seems obvious.
If women are ahead, you either need to drag them down, or lift men up. Obviously the latter is preferable.

Here's my problem with the whole "dragging women down" or "dragging men down" logics:

All you are doing is the equivalent of "oh yea? You poked my eye? Well then let me help you gouge your eye out personally". In other words, it foments the dynamic of "women are bitches/men are assholes" and, as such, nobody ends up winning, here.

Like it is used frequently: an eye for an eye leaves us all blind.

I think that what should really happen is for both men and women to accept each other as people, and not to be lobbying grenades at each other and making each other seem like Dr. No. Then again, who am I fucking kidding. This will never happen.

[Susurruses]

The bolded is completly false.

Women have made great strides in recent decades with issues associated with gender roles, while men's situation has remained constant.

The whole "We'll get to you when we're done" comes off as incredibly condescending as well.

None of this matters to feminists. There is no real difference, to a feminist, between living in Saudi Arabia and living in Canada. Men might as well beat and kill women openly in the streets. Nothing men say or do is even a millionth good enough until all government, all business, all education, all major health services, all finances are run almost entirely by women with perhaps 5% men. Then they MIGHT consider that there are a few good men out there beyond the handful of Uncle Tom White Knights they drag out for their amusement. Other than that, it doesn't matter. Men need to do their own thing, be wary of government and high finance and avoid entanglements.

Chill.
Pretty sure you're supposed to be better than the above nonsense.
This whole thread has turned into the usual shitstorm of anti-feminist bunkum.
So much for your 'humanist' outlook.

(Although tbh I'm not sure why moderators seem to have merged things into this thread multiple times.
It should've died long ago.)