The NationStates Feminist Thread III

[Ostroeuropa]

Does anyone actually have any proof women are viewed as having less agency, rather than their agency being constantly re-framed in positive terms?

In terms of raw data, not personally. Though I think I might be thinking of agency differently than you. As I define it, someone who doesn’t face the full negative consequences of their actions doesn’t have full agency. For example, children guilty of cold blooded murder not being tried as full adults. That is them not having full agency, their lack of agency benefiting them.

Women don't get away with shit because they're not held as fully competent. They get away with it because reasons for them doing it are rationalized and accepted due to a refusal by many people to view women or womens agency negatively.

We don't charge minors as full adults because they're not competent. We don't charge them as adults, then bend over backwards to rationalize why what they did wasn't so bad or was even okay.

Big difference.

In terms of raw data, not personally. Though I think I might be thinking of agency differently than you. As I define it, someone who doesn’t face the full negative consequences of their actions doesn’t have full agency. For example, children guilty of cold blooded murder not being tried as full adults. That is them not having full agency, their lack of agency benefiting them.

Depends. I think that constantly putting us in the role of victims truly harms our self agency. Which is something I often detest about certain adherents to Feminism.

How does it do that? It seems to me to be a way of escalating agency beyond the boundaries of womens own decisions into demanding control over even mens agency.

In concrete terms, how does it limit womens agency?

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

Depends. I think that constantly putting us in the role of victims truly harms our self agency. Which is something I often detest about certain adherents to Feminism.

That’s certainly true. What I mean is that being excused for one’s actions doesn’t mean that one’s agency is respected. The opposite, actually, is a fair few cases.

Ah, ok. Got it. Infantilizing like that indeed isn't respecting agency.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

In terms of raw data, not personally. Though I think I might be thinking of agency differently than you. As I define it, someone who doesn’t face the full negative consequences of their actions doesn’t have full agency. For example, children guilty of cold blooded murder not being tried as full adults. That is them not having full agency, their lack of agency benefiting them.

Women don't get away with shit because they're not held as fully competent. They get away with it because reasons for them doing it are rationalized and accepted due to a refusal by many people to view women or womens agency negatively.

We don't charge minors as full adults because they're not competent. We don't charge them as adults, then bend over backwards to rationalize why what they did wasn't so bad or was even okay.

Big difference.

Depends. I think that constantly putting us in the role of victims truly harms our self agency. Which is something I often detest about certain adherents to Feminism.

How does it do that? It seems to me to be a way of escalating agency beyond the boundaries of womens own decisions into demanding control over even mens agency.

In concrete terms, how does it limit womens agency?

Victim complex. "Poor dear, she's been a victim all her life. Of father, of brother, of spouse, of patriarchy... so when she lashes back, it can't very well be her fault. It's not her fault, really. It's the fault of everyone else."

To me, that hurts because although, yes, many women have been victimized, this attitude, that we have no control over our own actions, so we have to always be handled with kidgloves, harms our agency. "The poor victim can't very well be held responsible for her own actions."

On the same token: she can't make her own choices. We have to choose for her, even if that means taking over.

[Ostroeuropa]

That’s certainly true. What I mean is that being excused for one’s actions doesn’t mean that one’s agency is respected. The opposite, actually, is a fair few cases.

Ah, ok. Got it. Infantilizing like that indeed isn't respecting agency.

That isn't infantilizing. The way we treat women and the way we treat children is starkly different. It is merely a convenient way of framing it to avoid confronting the actual problem, once again a gynocentric view of the problem is asserted that has the problem backwards and suggests we just need to respect women more.

[Ostroeuropa]

Women don't get away with shit because they're not held as fully competent. They get away with it because reasons for them doing it are rationalized and accepted due to a refusal by many people to view women or womens agency negatively.

We don't charge minors as full adults because they're not competent. We don't charge them as adults, then bend over backwards to rationalize why what they did wasn't so bad or was even okay.

Big difference.



How does it do that? It seems to me to be a way of escalating agency beyond the boundaries of womens own decisions into demanding control over even mens agency.

In concrete terms, how does it limit womens agency?

Victim complex. "Poor dear, she's been a victim all her life. Of father, of brother, of spouse, of patriarchy... so when she lashes back, it can't very well be her fault. It's not her fault, really. It's the fault of everyone else."

To me, that hurts because although, yes, many women have been victimized, this attitude, that we have no control over our own actions, so we have to always be handled with kidgloves, harms our agency. "The poor victim can't very well be held responsible for her own actions."

It doesn't harm your agency when it allows you to do far more things and get away with it than men can. In practical terms, it is merely another means of uncritically celebrating female agency like we've been doing for decades, in this case, often framing it as fighting back or so on. I don't see much in the vein of "Poor victim" from feminists, I think that's a mischaracterization, I see far more triumphalist and vengeful minded justifications for that specific example you raised.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

Ah, ok. Got it. Infantilizing like that indeed isn't respecting agency.

That isn't infantilizing. The way we treat women and the way we treat children is starkly different. It is merely a convenient way of framing it to avoid confronting the actual problem, once again a gynocentric view of the problem is asserted that has the problem backwards and suggests we just need to respect women more.

By that I mean reducing women to a state of them not being able to choose. Ignoring that indeed, we can. And that those choices can be incredibly harmful to us and others.

[Ostroeuropa]

That isn't infantilizing. The way we treat women and the way we treat children is starkly different. It is merely a convenient way of framing it to avoid confronting the actual problem, once again a gynocentric view of the problem is asserted that has the problem backwards and suggests we just need to respect women more.

By that I mean reducing women to a state of them not being able to choose. Ignoring that indeed, we can. And that those choices can be incredibly harmful to us and others.

Again I disagree. I think we fully accept as a society that women can and do choose. What we're ignoring and refusing to confront is that those choices can be negative. We do everything we can to rationalize away the negative impacts of womens agency or excuse them. We don't ignore womens agency, we celebrate it uncritically. That is an important difference, it changes how we approach the problem.

We don't need yet more triumphalist and girl poweresque bullshit from a gynocentric movement utterly convinced the way to fix things is to shove biased portrayals of womens agency down our throats.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

Victim complex. "Poor dear, she's been a victim all her life. Of father, of brother, of spouse, of patriarchy... so when she lashes back, it can't very well be her fault. It's not her fault, really. It's the fault of everyone else."

To me, that hurts because although, yes, many women have been victimized, this attitude, that we have no control over our own actions, so we have to always be handled with kidgloves, harms our agency. "The poor victim can't very well be held responsible for her own actions."

It doesn't harm your agency when it allows you to do far more things and get away with it than men can. In practical terms, it is merely another means of uncritically celebrating female agency like we've been doing for decades, in this case, often framing it as fighting back or so on. I don't see much in the vein of "Poor victim" from feminists, I think that's a mischaracterization, I see far more triumphalist and vengeful minded justifications for that specific example you raised.

Read edit I made prior to your post.

[Ostroeuropa]

It doesn't harm your agency when it allows you to do far more things and get away with it than men can. In practical terms, it is merely another means of uncritically celebrating female agency like we've been doing for decades, in this case, often framing it as fighting back or so on. I don't see much in the vein of "Poor victim" from feminists, I think that's a mischaracterization, I see far more triumphalist and vengeful minded justifications for that specific example you raised.

Read edit I made prior to your post.

I don't follow, sorry. I accept that;

"On the same token: she can't make her own choices. We have to choose for her, even if that means taking over"

Actually would be limiting womens agency. Some forms of feminism, especially sex-negative, do do this, I accept that.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

Read edit I made prior to your post.

I don't follow, sorry. I accept that;

"On the same token: she can't make her own choices. We have to choose for her, even if that means taking over"

Actually would be limiting womens agency. Some forms of feminism, especially sex-negative, do do this, I accept that.

Limiting is also harmful. But I mean, this attitude obfuscates things. It attempts to hide the fact that we are capable of doing terrible things too. I have heard the "women can't be sexist because of their gender", and that is bullshit. It's the same attitude that fosters feelings of supremacy. Or vindictiveness.

My ex partner abused me. I wanted, very often, to gut him like a pig. I know that, had I done just that, I wouldn't have seen one day in jail. And although my ex deserved my hate, still does, and I would have felt amazing watching him die because of how long he hurt me, me not being prosecuted for murdering him would not have been the way to go. And yet, this is not uncommon. And I know I would have been championed.

This is not to say that many women aren't victims of spousal abuse. They are. But it, IMO, the attitude I just described can and has victimized your gender. Countless times. "Women are victims, all the time, period." Not healthy. At all. It harms agency.

I hope that explains my point a bit better.

[Ostroeuropa]

I don't follow, sorry. I accept that;

"On the same token: she can't make her own choices. We have to choose for her, even if that means taking over"

Actually would be limiting womens agency. Some forms of feminism, especially sex-negative, do do this, I accept that.

Limiting is also harmful. But I mean, this attitude obfuscates things. It attempts to hide the fact that we are capable of doing terrible things too. I have heard the "women can't be sexist because of their gender", and that is bullshit. It's the same attitude that fosters feelings of supremacy. Or vindictiveness.

My ex partner abused me. I wanted, very often, to gut him like a pig. I know that, had I done just that, I wouldn't have seen one day in jail. And although my ex deserved my hate, still does, and I would have felt amazing watching him die because of how long he hurt me, me not being prosecuted for murdering him would not have been the way to go. And yet, this is not uncommon. And I know I would have been championed.

This is not to say that many women aren't victims of spousal abuse. They are. But it, IMO, the attitude I just described can and has victimized your gender. Countless times. "Women are victims, all the time, period." Not healthy. At all. It harms agency.

I hope that explains my point a bit better.

I understand your point, I just fundamentally disagree with it. I don't see that as harming agency, but justifying it. To draw on an extreme example, would you consider the agency of hate groups as being diminished by victim narratives they use to justify lynching someone?

The victim narrative pushed does not limit womens agency, it expands it by providing justifications for more actions, and rationalizations for their acceptability. It affords women more options. Recognizing that women do things for reasons and those reasons make what they did okay is not an attack on them as an individual, it is a recognition of their humanity that men are not afforded, men are instead assumed to be the root source of negative outcomes of their behavior (An aspect of feminism and gynocentrism and the patriarchy lens too, and something worsened by feminist influence on society), and the impact of their environment on them is not recognized and often dismissed on feminist grounds. That's not because we view men as having agency that we treat them that way. What's also persistently present for women, but not men, is the dynamic where if a womans behavior can be rationalized as making sense to her, then it is unfair to punish her for it. That is a recognition of agency and an acceptance of womens decisions to an extreme degree.

You have things fundamentally backwards in my opinion.

[Ostroeuropa]

I don't follow, sorry. I accept that;

"On the same token: she can't make her own choices. We have to choose for her, even if that means taking over"

Actually would be limiting womens agency. Some forms of feminism, especially sex-negative, do do this, I accept that.

Limiting is also harmful. But I mean, this attitude obfuscates things. It attempts to hide the fact that we are capable of doing terrible things too. I have heard the "women can't be sexist because of their gender", and that is bullshit. It's the same attitude that fosters feelings of supremacy. Or vindictiveness.

My ex partner abused me. I wanted, very often, to gut him like a pig. I know that, had I done just that, I wouldn't have seen one day in jail. And although my ex deserved my hate, still does, and I would have felt amazing watching him die because of how long he hurt me, me not being prosecuted for murdering him would not have been the way to go. And yet, this is not uncommon. And I know I would have been championed.

This is not to say that many women aren't victims of spousal abuse. They are. But it, IMO, the attitude I just described can and has victimized your gender. Countless times. "Women are victims, all the time, period." Not healthy. At all. It harms agency.

I hope that explains my point a bit better.

I understand your point, I just fundamentally disagree with it. I don't see that as harming agency, but justifying it. To draw on an extreme example, would you consider the agency of hate groups as being diminished by victim narratives they use to justify lynching someone?

The victim narrative pushed does not limit womens agency, it expands it by providing justifications for more actions, and rationalizations for their acceptability. It affords women more options. Recognizing that women do things for reasons and those reasons make what they did okay is not an attack on them as an individual, it is a recognition of their humanity that men are not afforded, men are instead assumed to be the root source of negative outcomes of their behavior (An aspect of feminism and gynocentrism and the patriarchy lens too, and something worsened by feminist influence on society), and the impact of their environment on them is not recognized and often dismissed on feminist grounds. That's not because we view men as having agency that we treat them that way, it is not traditionalism causing these dynamics, but feminism, the two are similar though. What's also persistently present for women, but not men, is the dynamic where if a womans behavior can be rationalized as making sense to her, then it is unfair to punish her for it. That is a recognition of agency and an acceptance of womens decisions to an extreme degree.

You have things fundamentally backwards in my opinion.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

Limiting is also harmful. But I mean, this attitude obfuscates things. It attempts to hide the fact that we are capable of doing terrible things too. I have heard the "women can't be sexist because of their gender", and that is bullshit. It's the same attitude that fosters feelings of supremacy. Or vindictiveness.

My ex partner abused me. I wanted, very often, to gut him like a pig. I know that, had I done just that, I wouldn't have seen one day in jail. And although my ex deserved my hate, still does, and I would have felt amazing watching him die because of how long he hurt me, me not being prosecuted for murdering him would not have been the way to go. And yet, this is not uncommon. And I know I would have been championed.

This is not to say that many women aren't victims of spousal abuse. They are. But it, IMO, the attitude I just described can and has victimized your gender. Countless times. "Women are victims, all the time, period." Not healthy. At all. It harms agency.

I hope that explains my point a bit better.

I understand your point, I just fundamentally disagree with it. I don't see that as harming agency, but justifying it. To draw on an extreme example, would you consider the agency of hate groups as being diminished by victim narratives they use to justify lynching someone?

The victim narrative pushed does not limit womens agency, it expands it by providing justifications for more actions, and rationalizations for their acceptability. It affords women more options. Recognizing that women do things for reasons and those reasons make what they did okay is not an attack on them as an individual, it is a recognition of their humanity that men are not afforded, men are instead assumed to be the root source of negative outcomes of their behavior (An aspect of feminism and gynocentrism and the patriarchy lens too, and something worsened by feminist influence on society), and the impact of their environment on them is not recognized and often dismissed on feminist grounds. That's not because we view men as having agency that we treat them that way. What's also persistently present for women, but not men, is the dynamic where if a womans behavior can be rationalized as making sense to her, then it is unfair to punish her for it. That is a recognition of agency and an acceptance of womens decisions to an extreme degree.

You have things fundamentally backwards in my opinion.

I think I understand your point. It benefits women more than harms them because it affords them a lot of leeway in their actions, although I still think it harms women in a roundabout way.

[Costa Fierro]

The strangest ones are feminists that maintain that a vaguely defined patriarchy harms men too but for whatever reason refuse to believe that it harms men while advantaging women in certain areas.

They're basically saying "trust us". All it really is is lip service.

Their understanding of power and privilege is a zero-sum game where members of a privileged group can only be harmed by fellow members and no other group is capable of holding privilege.

Because power and privilege is a zero-sum game.

[Tahar Joblis]

I disagree that's the reason women are sentenced less. It's got more to do with dehumanization of men and female chauvinism, as evidenced by the fact the UK has managed to make that trend official using feminist rationalizations and arguments.

I'm inclined to disagree since criminal sentencing disparities predate the advent of feminism, exhibiting more prominence back when society was more staunchly patriarchal. Women have actually grown as a portion of the prison population since the 1950's and even the 1990's. And many of them are there on drug convictions. This suggests that a more egalitarian approach to gender, one that acknowledges the citizenship and moral agency of women, has been helpful in reducing what you refer to as female privilege and the dehumanization of men. I would argue that the movement to abolish women's prisons more strongly supports your argument since it's essentially a group of self-professed feminists appealing to gender roles that they've tried to scrap.

I want to zoom in on this point, because it's a case where the movement has collectively acted in a very hypocritical manner.

In 1848, the Seneca Falls Convention was essentially the formal founding of the first wave of American feminism. The Declaration of Sentiments includes the following complaint:

He has made her, morally, an irresponsible being, as she can commit many crimes with impunity, provided they be done in the presence of her husband. In the covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming, to all intents and purposes, her master—the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty, and to administer chastisement.

Here, we have a clear insight on the reality of the patriarchy.

In the Anglosphere's version of patriarchal structure, women were treated as if they were children. (Not, as some feminists have maintained rhetorically, as property or livestock.) Parents are held responsible for the misbehavior of women, and so husbands were considered, to the degree that it was possible, responsible for the misbehavior of their wives.

This guardianship resulted both in women escaping criminal punishment and women being under the command of men.

At this point in time, eliminating this feature of society was a distant dream. However, feminists as a group never actively fought to have women held more responsible; they concentrated instead on establishing rights to property and autonomous decision-making for women.

Society at large responded to feminist demands positively, but with general reforms of legal principles. People viewing women as not needing a male guardian will naturally lack that guardian-linked reason for not holding women responsible. Laws written broadly to bar discriminatory treatment of men and women will destroy any explicit policy of holding women irresponsible. Wider acceptance of a general principle of non-discrimination - and policies in line with those principles - caused women's rate of incarceration to increase.

We could say it was indirectly caused by the success of feminism, but it wasn't anything that feminists specifically fought for. It's a consequence mediated by larger society. It's a consequence that in principle some feminists can agree with ("Why, yes, men and women should be treated equally for sentencing!") but instead of advocating that the issue be addressed directly, those feminists argue that the solution is to attack the system of patriarchy by addressing the issues women want to have addressed, after which at some point the difference will magically evaporate.

Most feminists are actively ignoring the gendered nature of the issue. Some narrowly focus on groups of women that can be argued to have "intersectional" disadvantage, such as women who present in a more masculine fashion (who are treated more like men, i.e., badly). Some, though, once this rise in incarceration began to actually happen, began to take action - to try to preserve the patriarchal norm by rewrapping it in feminist rhetoric. That's where we get things like feminists writing in recommendations to avoid imprisoning women into judges' handbooks.

Many more feminists respond when it comes to individual cases where a woman is accused of a crime (especially a crime against a man); it's harder to rationalize policies that discriminate based on sex than to find an excuse to hide a sexist bias behind.

This pattern is not in any way limited to incarceration, but it's one of the clearer cases. We have a clear reason, expressed by feminists, why this sexist practice favoring women is tied to sexism that inhibits women; nevertheless, in the 170 years since, feminists have flinched away from taking action against the sexist practice, and once the sexist practice began to decay on its own, feminists began to construct novel reasons to maintain the sexist practice, and are basically the only people actively trying to maintain or increase the level of sexism practiced in this way.

[Ostroeuropa]

Interesting article on financial violence:

https://archive.is/kUBwH

I'm inclined to agree this is a form of domestic abuse. I've taken some of the more striking definitions of financial abuse to examine them and make a point here though;

Being forced to do paid work and not having access to wages

Not being able to participate in financial decisions that directly affect you

Threats of financial retribution for leaving a relationships

Notably, all of these align with MRM complaints of one kind of another, and once again recast the actions of the feminist movement in the past. It was not merely gynocentrism, lack of empathy for men, womens in-group bias and so on, when it comes to things like alimony, child support and so on, those are the causes, but it should be more properly understood as an organized push by the feminist movement for institutionalized financial violence to be enacted against men.

The cognitive dissonance is evident. On an individual level, these behaviors are abusive. But on a collective and institutionalized level, pushed for by feminism, suddenly they aren't? The collective abuse and oppression of men is exactly what we're alleging here.

Violence is not just physical assault. Violence is about power.

Reminder that "Empowering" is one of the feminist movements favorite words.

Does anyone contest this? Can someone explain why we shouldn't view feminisms historical actions here as pushing for financial violence and institutionalizing domestic abuse against men into the very law?

In combination with the custody bias feminism fostered, it seems clear that much of their behavior effectively that this scares at least some men into staying in relationships they might otherwise not, and probably means men in general are more willing to put up with more bad behavior from their partners than women are as a result of the power dynamics in play.

Which is arguably the entire point. Again we see how the feminist ideology, in practice, is strikingly oppressive and controlling. The financial violence (And let's just go with it, familial/social violence) feminism enacted against men keeps them less likely to object to their spouses poor treatment of them out of fear of repercussions.

The relationship dynamics fostered by the feminist movement and its ideology are fundamentally abusive.

[Fahran]

Interesting article on financial violence:

https://archive.is/kUBwH

I'm inclined to agree this is a form of domestic abuse. I've taken some of the more striking definitions of financial abuse to examine them and make a point here though;

Being forced to do paid work and not having access to wages

Not being able to participate in financial decisions that directly affect you

Threats of financial retribution for leaving a relationships

Yes, this would represent a form of coercion and domestic abuse depending on the form it took. I would even go so far as to argue that an implicit power dynamic based on financial inequities influences a good many spousal relationships throughout the world. While this principally impacts women, as it has for thousands of years, men can be victims as well.

Notably, all of these align with MRM complaints of one kind of another, and once again recast the actions of the feminist movement in the past. It was not merely gynocentrism, lack of empathy for men, womens in-group bias and so on, when it comes to things like alimony, child support and so on, those are the causes, but it should be more properly understood as an organized push by the feminist movement for institutionalized financial violence to be enacted against men.

I would call these policies forms of financial coercion, yes, but they go beyond the spousal relationship as well, meaning that a characterization of them as domestic violence, institutionalized or not, is inaccurate. The reason policies like child support exist is that society has a moral and pragmatic belief, one collectively held, that a parent should be responsible to his or her progeny. The parent with primary custody has a right to child support because the other parent has an obligation to provide for that child and because society does not want to assume that burden. It's akin to imposing an externality cost on someone or something. At present, the system retains old prejudices in favor of women, characterizing us as more nurturing and more natural parents, and that does warrant complaint. The idea of child support, however, does not. We view this as a gender issue principally because, within the context of American culture, it is one.

Source.

With regard to alimony, I'd prefer to narrow its scope. Women who quit their jobs with the understanding that they'll be housewives while their husbands serve as breadwinners should be entitled to some form of restitution in the event of a divorce if it can be demonstrated that this occurred through no fault of their own. Likewise, for men in the same situation. These policies trace back to a time when women were often socially discouraged from working once married. Some of my older female relatives would have been in a bad place if their husbands had left them - because many had never worked a day in their lives and had been expected to be housewives from a young age. So, again, biases need to be addressed, but scraping a system that is based on counteracting financial coercion within spousal relationships to further that cause is a bit peculiar.

The cognitive dissonance is evident. On an individual level, these behaviors are abusive. But on a collective and institutionalized level, pushed for by feminism, suddenly they aren't? The collective abuse and oppression of men is exactly what we're alleging here.

The stated intention of these policies is to mitigate financial coercion by making it possible for women to survive and raise families in the event that they get divorced or left. Additionally, society doesn't want to raise the kids that men (or women less often) leave. Child support especially imposes responsibility. Yes, it is coercion, but it serves an altogether different end on paper.

Violence is not just physical assault. Violence is about power.

Reminder that "Empowering" is one of the feminist movements favorite words.

Does anyone contest this? Can someone explain why we shouldn't view feminisms historical actions here as pushing for financial violence and institutionalizing domestic abuse against men into the very law?

Because, within the historical context, it's very clear that these policies didn't originate as a form of spousal abuse against men, though, in a more modern context, they should probably be adjusted to prevent abuse.

In combination with the custody bias feminism fostered, it seems clear that much of their behavior effectively that this scares at least some men into staying in relationships they might otherwise not, and probably means men in general are more willing to put up with more bad behavior from their partners than women are as a result of the power dynamics in play.

This is one possibility since women do initiate seventy percent of divorce proceedings, though research has suggested that women are less satisfied with married life as a group as well. Addressing custody bias is one of the more commendable objectives of the MRM. That said, I think your argument about these policies originating as a result of misandry is a bit hyperbolic and wrongheaded. We have no evidence of that.

[Ostroeuropa]

Yes, this would represent a form of coercion and domestic abuse depending on the form it took. I would even go so far as to argue that an implicit power dynamic based on financial inequities influences a good many spousal relationships throughout the world. While this principally impacts women, as it has for thousands of years, men can be victims as well.

We're in agreement here.

I would call these policies forms of financial coercion, yes, but they go beyond the spousal relationship as well, meaning that a characterization of them as domestic violence, institutionalized or not, is inaccurate.

The threat of this financial and familial coercion hangs over the relationship and principally benefits women. If financial coercion and the threat of it is present throughout a relationship and causes men to tolerate more from women, is that not an abusive dynamic?

The reason policies like child support exist is that society has a moral and pragmatic belief, one collectively held, that a parent should be responsible to his or her progeny. The parent with primary custody has a right to child support because the other parent has an obligation to provide for that child and because society does not want to assume that burden. It's akin to imposing an externality cost on someone or something.

I disagree with you that that is why child support exists and can demonstrate to you that this is merely a rationalization used to excuse injustice against men.

We do not hold women liable for refusing to name the father, despite the childs supposed rights, and despite this action denying the child its supposed entitlements as a result of her actions. (This extends to explicit refusal, which could be covered by a law requiring positive proof or confession, but isn't.).

Another major example (there's more, we've covered it previously here.) We allow drop-off shelters where children can simply be legally abandoned and the parents responsibilities for them forfeit.

We allow both parents if they are in agreement to abandon their responsibilities to a child.

The only reason child support is there is to force men to support womens life decisions without consideration for their own desires or lives. As a society we do not consistently hold to the principal that is used to excuse this injustice against men. It is principally the mother that decide whether a child is entitled to a mans income, not society as a whole imposing such a dynamic, the dynamic society imposes is giving women the power to make that decision.

At present, the system retains old prejudices in favor of women, characterizing us as more nurturing and more natural parents, and that does warrant complaint. The idea of child support, however, does not. We view this as a gender issue principally because, within the context of American culture, it is one.

They're not particularly old biases. Child custody was warped in favor of women rather recently as a result of the feminist movement and attempts to paint men as domestically violent and a threat to women and children, resulting from the feminist movements distorted and sexist views on domestic violence. Tahar Jobils has covered it before. NOW in fact supported women having primary custody when they request it by default, this is the event that sparked the mens rights movement to schism when Farrel criticized this and received no support from other influential feminists. (The movements legitimacy, if it ever had any, was ceded to us that day imo.)

This framing of yours is a result of the feminist framework not aligning with reality. You analyze the situation in place with a feminist lens and attribute the sexism to patriarchal norms, but that isn't how things used to be. The feminist movement got involved, imposed new sexist norms based around demonizing men as violent to their families and therefore untrustworthy, and now you're attributing them to traditionalist norms because that's what your lens tells you all sexism is. Rationalizing feminist sexism as the fault of traditionalism is a major flaw with feminism that keeps it going, and confronting that is important to destroying sexism. Incidentally, that is one reason mens interest in teaching also collapsed. Ask Tahar for the more specific details.

With regard to alimony, I'd prefer to narrow its scope. Women who quit their jobs with the understanding that they'll be housewives while their husbands serve as breadwinners should be entitled to some form of restitution in the event of a divorce if it can be demonstrated that this occurred through no fault of their own.

Why. It's just another instance of Insulating women from the consequences of their decisions and shifting the negative impacts of them to men, and once more, forcing men to support womens life decisions against their will because of the fetishization of womens agency above all other considerations including mens wellbeing. We should not enable women like this constantly, and then maybe less of them would decide to do this sort of stuff.

Likewise, for men in the same situation.

Given that women are able to pursue better work-life balance than men, this is unlikely, but possible. The point is that constantly instituting rules and influencing culture in ways that generally benefit women at the expense of men is a defining feature of feminism and its activism.

These policies trace back to a time when women were often socially discouraged from working once married. Some of my older female relatives would have been in a bad place if their husbands had left them - because many had never worked a day in their lives and had been expected to be housewives from a young age. So, again, biases need to be addressed, but scraping a system that is based on counteracting financial coercion within spousal relationships to further that cause is a bit peculiar.

This only justifies alimony to keep someone fed and sheltered and so on, which is not how it was instituted. It is merely a rationalization to excuse away injustice against men again. Nothing about this justifies the extreme settlements we see, and indeed, it's not supposed to justify them. You're trying to cast alimony as a solution to a problem, but it isn't that solution, it's a far more excessive and punitive one.

The stated intention of these policies is to mitigate financial coercion by making it possible for women to survive and raise families in the event that they get divorced or left. Additionally, society doesn't want to raise the kids that men (or women less often) leave. Child support especially imposes responsibility. Yes, it is coercion, but it serves an altogether different end on paper.

So financial abuse is fine if we rationalize an excuse for it and say i'm only not giving you your paycheques so I can feed the children, got it. None of it alters that these things you are saying don't actually address the concerns and are mere excuses to rationalize away mens suffering from the system feminists imposed as justified. Notably, as a further example of how alimony is a policy advanced with a total lack of empathy for men as a guiding principle, many of the arguments revolved around viewing the relationship as a form of corporation in which the womans duties were necessary to help the husband achieve their status and money. But at no point was this put into actual practice, because it was a rationalization to demand the subjugation of men, not a sincere observatuion. At no point was it suggested women be guaranteed employment by their former spouses as cleaners, cooks, and so on, supposedly necessary to maintain the mans status. That the man is losing out on his end of this supposed deal women made with their men was never considered because mens situation was simply never considered, their perspective is not sought out or evaluated.

Sans that arrangement I see no reason alimony should be given.

Tell me, the women who agree with their men to take up certain duties and are thereby entitled to compensation (Which they in fact do receive so long as they perform those duties and you are ignoring), by what right do you propose they get compensation when they cease to uphold their end of the bargain? And more than that, compensation equating to half of the venture? Can you tell me of any other contract or form of employment that works this way? No, you can't. Because alimony is not a system advanced between two consenting adults, it is imposed as one subjugating the other and disregarding their rights and experiences, using the excuse that subjugating them is necessary and justified because it improves the womans agency.

It is an idea that can only be advanced with a total lack of empathy for men and lack of consideration for their perspective as the guiding principle. It is a completely one-sided approach to the situation, and that reveals the underlying mentalities of those who instituted it and support it.


Also important to dismissing this rationalization you gave for alimony existing is noting that there is quite clearly sexism in some women that has been openly expressed regarding this topic and their entitlement to mens money and how they view men as there to be rinsed of their cash and so on. It's not a stretch to assume these more explicitly predatory women are voicing a general prejudice that quietly informed or distorted the views of women in general when they demanded these changes. Ignoring these sexist attitudes and what it says about the way men are viewed when providing an explanation for alimony is pretty uncritical. So i'll ask you plainly.

To what extent did womens sexism against men impact the demands they made on these topics and how they handled them? Because your current explanation treats it like it doesn't exist and didn't impact any of these processes or demands at all. I suspect that's because you haven't come to terms with the fact these rationalized excuses come from the feminist movement prior to its being dragged kicking and screaming into recognizing misandry (Some of the time, often in sexist ways, or just to rationalize it away again), and so notably, do not incorporate it into their explanation of historical events. They were formulated by sexists and you are merely repeating them without critical examination.

It's an example of how the discourse of feminism is riddled with problems and it's simply better to start over and abandon the movement, it's also an example (one of many) demonstrating the origins of the movement and how it has historically been fundamentally misandrist and gynocentrist, to such an extent and over such a long period of time, that even people more ammenable to mens issues fall afoul of the misandry its worldview fosters because they are utilizing irradiated tools.

Because, within the historical context, it's very clear that these policies didn't originate as a form of spousal abuse against men, though, in a more modern context, they should probably be adjusted to prevent abuse.

Disagree for the above reasons. In conjunction with the cultural changes feminism brought about surrounding custody and the routine portrayal of fathers as superfluous and single mothers as just as capable as a married couple and so on (Something that has done immense damage to society), they take on an abusive nature. It's all fine and dandy to say a knife isn't intended as a weapon and is supposed to make sandwiches, but when this knife was brought onto the premises by a serial killer, I think it's fair to say what the intent of that knife is supposed to be.

This is one possibility since women do initiate seventy percent of divorce proceedings, though research has suggested that women are less satisfied with married life as a group as well.

Men are raised to base their self-esteem around womens approval in a way that women aren't. It's also possible women have unrealistic expectations of spouses. Women are also biased in their own favor in ways men aren't and so on. It's possible women aren't happy in marriage because broadly speaking they hold more sexist views about men than men do about women and don't enjoy being around men as much as a consequence. They also have more to gain from splitting up the marriage and this may color their view of the marriage. For men, a marriage is the status quo and changing it results in major loss and hardship. For women, that is mitigated, and so they might see divorce as a better option.

In fact, limiting alimony has resulted in a drop in divorce rates where it's been tried.

Addressing custody bias is one of the more commendable objectives of the MRM. That said, I think your argument about these policies originating as a result of misandry is a bit hyperbolic and wrongheaded. We have no evidence of that.

See above.
(Okay, now i'm done. Sorry for constant edits.)

[Thanatttynia]

Not in today's climate I can't, no (although it has happened many times in the past.) I think your sentiment that there is increased tolerance for misandry over other forms of prejudice within the cultural mainstream is broadly correct, although I wouldn't go so far as to say that it indicates misandry is mainstream. This increased tolerance is, as I see it, a natural reaction to the patriarchal system most of us have lived under since the beginning of civilisation. It's unfortunate for (white) men, it's not right, but it's understandable.

I also think that editorial appointments and job-offers to people who post tasteless/racist/sexist jokes online obscures the real problems that e.g. women still face in a world that paradoxically is much more well suited to men than other groups despite being simultaneously more accepting of prejudice against them.

I think that fears over litigation is a more likely reason for this than any ideological opposition to what Jones is saying. He drives traffic to these publishers, and thus money, but the minute he has become a financial liability he has been cut loose. I'm not shedding any tears over it, but I can understand the concern.

It isn't a natural reaction to those things any more than being an Islamophobe is a natural reaction to 9/11 or some shit. It shouldn't be tolerated and we should crack down on it. Misandry is pretty mainstream, you've not taken up the offer I gave to educate you on the extent of it from your post in LWDT where you revealed how little you understood MRA arguments.

It’s a natural reaction. I’m not saying that it’s right, but it’s natural. I didn’t see that, it’s a pretty patronising offer and I feel your desire to be oppressed (another natural reaction, this time to being accused of being an oppressor) will cloud your judgment over any aspect of this and because of that you will have little interesting to say. In the interest of debate, however, feel free to educate me.

It's not merely unfortunate for white men. It's unfortunate for men in general and especially minorities, refusal to tackle misandry worsens racism against men because of how racism and misandry intersect.

Yes, this is correct.

The west is not more suited to men than women, quite the opposite, that idea is an expression of ignorance of the extent of misandry, and its a view you picked up from listening to sources in the mainstream that you already admit are more tolerant of misandry rather than viewing them skeptically and seeking to educate yourself and considering whether the dynamic they present to explain sexism is merely yet another expression of their prejudices against men.

Western societies are more suited to men than women. It’s an idea I picked up from assessing the world I see around me and drawing my own conclusions from doing so. I am a white man; I don’t get off on considering that the world has been built for white men, especially considering that the society I live in hasn’t been too kind to me nor any of the other white men I personally know. But individual experience of this kind does not negate the actual substance of large-scale oppression experienced by people who are not white or who are not men/male.

You appear to be handwaving away the sexism involved here. I can come up with rationalizations for why various sexisms and racisms are understandable too, but it doesn't change anything about them being wrong and something that needs to be cracked down on.

Again, something being understandable doesn’t mean that it’s right. Understanding another person’s perspective is called being empathetic, and it doesn’t suggest that you have to agree with that perspective.

your presentation of history as patriarchal is something I could also cover in the feminist thread if you're willing, it too is reliant on a biased and gynocentric view of the situation. The reason misandry is tolerated and pushed is indeed partly because of the feminist narrative about sexism and history, it inculcated hatred, contempt, discrimination, and prejudice against men, as you say its understandable such a narrative would cause misandry to be tolerated. The problem is their narrative is wrong, and itself an expression of bias and prejudice. You appear to be saying some racisms and sexisms are more understandable than others, that's not exactly good evidence that the feminist worldview hasn't made you prejudiced, it's kind of the opposite.

Lol ok now I really want to see how you weasel history out of being patriarchal. The vast majority of human societies have been patriarchal. And no, again, all perspectives are equally understandable. Some may be more right than others, but I can understand what would drive people to think all sorts of things.

For instance, it's not mere mean words, but things like presenting women as more intelligent than men (In the process, ignoring and not discussing institutional misandry in the education system.)

If you’re going to keep going on about this article I would appreciate a link. It may be the case that females are more intelligent than males on average, I don’t know. It’s certainly the case that males are physically stronger than females on average. That’s a fact; it’s not misogynistic to accept this, and it wouldn’t be misandristic to accept that females are more intelligent (if they are.)

Is it "Understandable" for men to hate women in the context of modern society because of female privilege and our institutions backing of it?

I'd say no, it isn't, but it's probably closer to reasonable than women hating men over dynamics that no longer exist.

Yes, your viewpoint is understandable, because of the perceptions you have. It doesn’t mean that those perceptions you have are correct.

Infowars being banned for liability reasons is something that facebook could have admitted. Instead they pretended it was over peddling hatred. That opens the door to comparing the level of hatred Infowars peddled to the level others do, and within that context it isn't justified for them to be banned without many other publications also being banned.

Have any infowars contributors explicitly argued for demographic superiority?

I mean, probably. I’ll look now.

I don’t see how you are seriously arguing that the NYT is as offensive as InfoWars. I would invite you to take off your tinfoil hat and try to objectively review the situation.

[Ostroeuropa]

*Snip*

I don't "desire" to be oppressed. That's a ridiculous assertion. I was a feminist for years and bought into the same crap you do. It wasn't because I was called an oppressor I changed, it was that I was exposed to new information. This kind of thought-terminating dismissal of criticism is part of the problem with the feminist movement.

Okay, let's start with some basic examples and questions.

What would you need to prove to you that western society is misandrist?

How about this one:
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/0 ... 81236.html

Prejudice in the education system is a pretty significant indication of widespread social prejudice, isn't it?

Not only are boys given lower marks and punished more for the same work and behaviors, but the boys are aware of this fact, and this impacts their motivation.
In the UK studies on male suicide, education prospects were deemed to be the most important factor in the suicide of young men.

It's simple therefore to draw a connection between womens sexism against men (Note, male teachers treat students equally according to the study), and the suicide epidemic, as well as the education crisis and so on.

You've also got this example which I should cover to dismiss the frequent and vapid feminist idea of representation in government.

There are no billionaires in the senate. They are nonetheless the most represented because of their lobbying power, and they serve the interests of profit and capital, and nothing else. The harvard study shows this is to such an extent they classified the US as an oligarchy.

There are no major lobbies on behalf of men, and thousands on behalf of women. In terms of representation in government actions and agendas, we live in a matriarchy by the same standards.

In the UK, this was best highlighted by the first international mens day debate, where issues like circumcision were discussed for the first time in thousands of years, which was brought forward by a mens rights activist. None of the feminists in the history of the parliament did so, it took us to do it. In fact the most prominent feminist response was to assert that every day is international mens day in parliament, because of their ignoring of disparities of lobbying power.

How about we start with those and work from there, and why don't you elaborate on what you'd need to see to consider society misandrist and advantaging women over men?

Lol ok now I really want to see how you weasel history out of being patriarchal. The vast majority of human societies have been patriarchal.

History contained misogyny and misandry. The dynamics of history were that individuals were subjugated to the interests of the family, the clan, and the tribe, both men and women. Presenting this as the oppression of women is erasure of mens suffering under that system and womens agency in perpetuating that system.
Both men and women were disadvantaged by this system, but it was not that women were subjugated to mens interests as patriarchy theory tries to assert, it was that everyone was subjugated to collective interests and the tyranny of cousins. (Tyranny of cousins also being an explanation for homophobia.).

This gave way to state rule over time, but there were latent attitudes. In addition, the interests of the individual were then subjugated to the interests of the nation and the state, itself often presented as an extended clan.

It is only through the common feminist practices of gynocentrism, erasure of mens issues, experiences, and perpsectives, and so on, that history can be cast as patriarchal. The same problems with a feminist worldview in the modern day for understanding sexism apply to the feminist understanding of history. In much the same way as you might "Love to see someone weasel out" of considering modern society primarily anti-woman rather than anti-male because you don't know about the extent of misandry and haven't had the misframing of the issue and the cycle of feminist confirmation bias pointed out to you, the feminist view of history likewise misframes it through ignoring evidence and ideas that go against their primary dogmatic assertions.

I didn’t see that, it’s a pretty patronising offer

It's patronizing because you said men aren't oppressed in a meaningful way. I just elaborated on a pretty significant and meaningful one (education bias from women teachers), you showed you know nothing about mens issues and get to be the latest feminist to learn about them from an actual equality movement (The MRM), rather than remain ignorant. When you do learn them, remember this, none of your peers, none of your sources, none of them, told you this shit. It took an MRA to do it. Feminism was entirely worthless to you in terms of learning about how to achieve actual equality, because feminism isn't about equality, it's about asserting a particular framework for understanding sexism that is gynocentrist, erases mens issues, perpetuates misandry, and so on.

It's patronizing because you're going around saying shit like men aren't oppressed in a meaningful way. I'd likewise be patronizing to someone who was cock-sure there was no evidence of global warming.

[Thanatttynia]

I don't "desire" to be oppressed. That's a ridiculous assertion.

Eh idk man that's the vibe I get from you and a lot of other people. I think it's natural to want there to be large-scale reasons for why bad things have happened, I'm not judging you for it.

Okay, let's start with some basic examples and questions.

What would you need to prove to you that western society is misandrist?

Probably some actual evidence of widespread and systemic misandry the weight and scale of which is such that it overrides all of the evidence to the contrary that I have seen.

How about this one:
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/0 ... 81236.html

Prejudice in the education system is a pretty significant indication of widespread social prejudice, isn't it?

Not only are boys given lower marks and punished more for the same work and behaviors, but the boys are aware of this fact, and this impacts their motivation.
In the UK studies on male suicide, education prospects were deemed to be the most important factor in the suicide of young men.

It's simple therefore to draw a connection between womens sexism against men (Note, male teachers treat students equally according to the study), and the suicide epidemic, as well as the education crisis and so on.

That's worrying, but I don't know that one isolated study in one aspect of society is evidence of widespread social prejudice, no.

That is a simple connection, yes. It's interesting. There may well be a connection between the education system not working for boys and the suicide epidemic amongst young men, but more research would be needed before I could blame teachers for driving their male students to kill themselves.

You've also got this example which I should cover to dismiss the frequent and vapid feminist idea of representation in government.

There are no billionaires in the senate. They are nonetheless the most represented because of their lobbying power, and they serve the interests of profit and capital, and nothing else. The harvard study shows this is to such an extent they classified the US as an oligarchy.

There are no major lobbies on behalf of men, and thousands on behalf of women. In terms of representation in government actions and agendas, we live in a matriarchy by the same standards.

Fwiw I'm not completely sold on the idea of representation as pushed by liberal feminists (a/o to liberationists) as being some sort of universal value (i.e more female drone pilots = feminism.) That being said, I think you should consider the gender makeup of the major lobbying groups. They may not be explicitly for men as some major lobbying groups are explicitly for women, but 'men's interests' are going to be served over 'women's interests' by most powerful lobbying groups. Billionaires are mostly men, ergo, most of them aren't going to be pushing for measures that help women more than they help men.

In the UK, this was best highlighted by the first international mens day debate, where issues like circumcision were discussed for the first time in thousands of years, which was brought forward by a mens rights activist. None of the feminists in the history of the parliament did so, it took us to do it. In fact the most prominent feminist response was to assert that every day is international mens day in parliament, because of their ignoring of disparities of lobbying power.

I think both of the approaches you've highlighted are wrong. Men's rights activism has an earned reputation for being misogynist; this has lost them credibility. It doesn't mean they have nothing interesting to say about issues which exclusively or primarily affect men. It's understandable, however, that many mainstream politicians don't want to have anything to do with them. In a similar way, radical feminists have little credibility as they have an earned reputation for being misandrist, but that doesn't mean they don't have anything interesting to say about issues which exclusively or primarily affect women.

Lol ok now I really want to see how you weasel history out of being patriarchal. The vast majority of human societies have been patriarchal.

History contained misogyny and misandry. The dynamics of history were that individuals were subjugated to the interests of the family, the clan, and the tribe, both men and women. Presenting this as the oppression of women is erasure of mens experiences and womens agency in perpetuating that system.

The family, the clan and the tribe were almost exclusively headed by men; women's voices in these institutions weren't heard, they weren't democratic systems, ergo the interests of the family, the clan, and the tribe were actually the interests of the powerful men who headed the family, the clan, and the tribe. Women were routinely subjugated to men throughout the entire course of history. There have been thousands of civilisations; of these, a handful have been matriarchal. Individual women absolutely perpetuated and in many cases succeeded under this patriarchal system, but that fact cannot negate the larger historical reality that women were on the whole oppressed by men. Many more men than women succeeded under it.

[Thanatttynia]

Replying to edits:

Both men and women were disadvantaged by this system, but it was not that women were subjugated to mens interests as patriarchy theory tries to assert, it was that everyone was subjugated to collective interests and the tyranny of cousins. (Tyranny of cousins also being an explanation for homophobia.).

This gave way to state rule over time, but there were latent attitudes. In addition, the interests of the individual were then subjugated to the interests of the nation and the state, itself often presented as an extended clan.

See previous post. 'Interests of the family/clan/nation/state/collective' are shorthand for male interests (insofar as 'male interests' are opposed to 'female interests') because these groupings were controlled by men.

It is only through the common feminist practices of gynocentrism, erasure of mens issues, experiences, and perpsectives, and so on, that history can be cast as patriarchal. The same problems with a feminist worldview in the modern day for understanding sexism apply to the feminist understanding of history. In much the same way as you might "Love to see someone weasel out" of considering modern society primarily anti-woman rather than anti-male because you don't know about the extent of misandry and haven't had the misframing of the issue and the cycle of feminist confirmation bias pointed out to you, the feminist view of history likewise misframes it through ignoring evidence and ideas that go against their primary dogmatic assertions.

No, it's only through understanding history that you can see it as patriarchal. Viewing it as an ideological battleground leads to interpretations like yours. What evidence and which ideas disprove the view that history has been patriarchal?

I didn’t see that, it’s a pretty patronising offer

It's patronizing because you said men aren't oppressed in a meaningful way. I just elaborated on a pretty significant and meaningful one (education bias from women teachers), you showed you know nothing about mens issues and get to be the latest feminist to learn about them from an actual equality movement (The MRM), rather than remain ignorant. When you do learn them, remember this, none of your peers, none of your sources, none of them, told you this shit. It took an MRA to do it. Feminism was entirely worthless to you in terms of learning about how to achieve actual equality, because feminism isn't about equality, it's about asserting a particular framework for understanding sexism that is gynocentrist, erases mens issues, perpetuates misandry, and so on.

It's patronizing because you're going around saying shit like men aren't oppressed in a meaningful way. I'd likewise be patronizing to someone who was cock-sure there was no evidence of global warming.

I didn't say that, I said that Western societies were built more for men than they were for women. Your patronising and paranoid ramblings are therefore not relevant to this discussion.

You do not have a galaxy brain; MRAism is as much of a framework for understanding sexism as feminism is, it's just one which is less accepted because fewer people agree with the assertions that they make than with the assertions that feminists make.

[Ostroeuropa]

Eh idk man that's the vibe I get from you and a lot of other people. I think it's natural to want there to be large-scale reasons for why bad things have happened, I'm not judging you for it.

It's a way to poison the well when discussing mens issues and nothing more. If you got a spooky scary vibe that they wanted white genocide every time black people talked about racism, it would say more about you than them.

Probably some actual evidence of widespread and systemic misandry the weight and scale of which is such that it overrides all of the evidence to the contrary that I have seen.

That's simple to do. Which areas would you consider most convincing? Justice/Education and so on? There's loads to cover.

That's worrying, but I don't know that one isolated study in one aspect of society is evidence of widespread social prejudice, no.

That is a simple connection, yes. It's interesting. There may well be a connection between the education system not working for boys and the suicide epidemic amongst young men, but more research would be needed before I could blame teachers for driving their male students to kill themselves.

There's been more than one study on the matter, this one merely showed that the boys are at least subconsciously aware women teachers are discriminating against them, and divided teachers into "Women" and "Men.", previous studies only showed teachers in general discriminate against boys.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-31751672
(A big study conducted across 60 countries. There are many studies showing this outcome.)

It's not teachers driving men to suicide, its women teachers, as the study notes, men teachers do not behave this way. (Something that undermines the typically feminist view on how sexism works, and gives credence to the notion of female chauvinism being a major form of sexism separate from hegemonic masculine sexism.) but I can cover other things too.

Fwiw I'm not completely sold on the idea of representation as pushed by liberal feminists (a/o to liberationists) as being some sort of universal value (i.e more female drone pilots = feminism.) That being said, I think you should consider the gender makeup of the major lobbying groups. They may not be explicitly for men as some major lobbying groups are explicitly for women, but 'men's interests' are going to be served over 'women's interests' by most powerful lobbying groups. Billionaires are mostly men, ergo, most of them aren't going to be pushing for measures that help women more than they help men.

There is no evidence for this being true. Profit lobbying serves one interest, the interest of the business and profit. You won't find instances of major financial lobbying covering mens issues, and cannot do so historically either. Find some evidence for this assertion of yours if you can. There are many explicit womens lobbies, and almost none for men, and that is why womens interests are represented and mens aren't. Can you find me an instance of financial lobbying doing something to benefit men over women? If not, I suggest you reconsider this, because it seems based in the same flawed view of sexism the foundations of feminism are, the same kind of mentality that caused Jess Phillips to stand up and say every day is international mens day in parliament. It is based in the assumption that men represent mens interests by virtue of being men, but that doesn't have evidence to back it up, and in fact the evidence goes against it, as men are biased slightly in womens favor, and women are biased heavily in womens favor. The feminist idea that men represent mens interests is a projection of womens traits on to men, this extends to their notion that society was built for men rather than women because it was built by men, but men don't work that way, and we've got studies to show it. Women represent womens interests, men don't represent mens, they actually represent womens, just less than women do.

(See bias studies:)

https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2018 ... n-for.html

Men & women more strongly blamed men for their own disadvantages, were more supportive of policies that favored women, & donated more to a female-only (vs male-only) homeless shelter. Females showed a stronger in-group bias, perceiving women's harm as more problematic

This seems to disprove your argument.

http://www.apa.org/monitor/dec04/women.aspx

Women are nearly five times more likely to show an automatic preference for their own gender than men are to show such favoritism for their own gender, according to a study in the October issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Vol. 87, No. 4).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15491274

Piggybacking off these, let's take another shot at disproving feminist theory:

We've seen the studies on how men around other men don't enforce norms, women enforce them all the time, and in mixed spaces, men start enforcing them. (Completely contrary to the feminist narrative and the projection of their own chauvinism on to men.).

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 5711000321

This is a very damning indictment of feminist portrayals of how sexism is enforced, and is another piece of evidence showing that men are oppressed, given that they do not seem to enforce these norms of their own accord, and that these norms disadvantage them.

I think both of the approaches you've highlighted are wrong. Men's rights activism has an earned reputation for being misogynist; this has lost them credibility. It doesn't mean they have nothing interesting to say about issues which exclusively or primarily affect men. It's understandable, however, that many mainstream politicians don't want to have anything to do with them. In a similar way, radical feminists have little credibility as they have an earned reputation for being misandrist, but that doesn't mean they don't have anything interesting to say about issues which exclusively or primarily affect women.

We did nothing to earn such a reputation, it was merely feminist assertion that anyone who disagrees with their dogmas (even with well researched and detailed arguments) is a misogynist, or seeks to return to patriarchy, and so on. The vilfiication campaign against us is an expression of the disproportionate lobbying power in play.

The family, the clan and the tribe were almost exclusively headed by men; women's voices in these institutions weren't heard, they weren't democratic systems, ergo the interests of the family, the clan, and the tribe were actually the interests of the powerful men who headed the family, the clan, and the tribe.

That's an assertion without evidence. It is not in mens interests to go to war and be disposable and so on. You are again committing the feminist fallacy of assuming men represent mens interests when given power, despite all the evidence against such a notion and that such a notion is merely projection.

Women were routinely subjugated to men throughout the entire course of history.

This is an assertion born out of the feminist movements massive levels of insecurity about its necessity and relevance. Womens rights have waxed and waned throughout history, at times being equal in many respects in some societies, at times not. The drive to portray history as uniformly the oppression of women by men is necessary for feminists to continue to pretend their ideas are the only way women can gain influence, when a non-ideologically biased view of history easily proves otherwise.

In addition, your view is based on the assertion of a particular dynamic that feminism focuses on, while rationalizing other dynamics as the same (they aren't.).

It is based on the assumption hegemomic masculine sexism was the norm in all places and times, and in discounting female chauvinism as a potential dynamic in relationships. Is a man who is beaten, berated and belittled and pressured and so on by his spouse to behave certain ways and act certain ways in line with sexist ideas not also oppressed?

I remind you that the punishment for male victims of domestic violence historically (should they make it known to the public), was public ridicule and riding the donkey backwards and so on. The feminist movement has sought to portray one type of sexism in history as the uniform, when there were many dynamics in place. This erasure of female perpetration of sexism and subjugation, and hyperfocus on male perpetration, is rooted in their dogma and worldview, and leads to the problems with the movement we see today.

Ignoring that historically, women could be oppressive enforcers of sexist norms on their spouses and so on for the womans own benefit, is essential to casting history as men oppressing women as feminism does.

There have been thousands of civilisations; of these, a handful have been matriarchal. Individual women absolutely perpetuated and in many cases succeeded under this patriarchal system, but that fact cannot negate the larger historical reality that women were on the whole oppressed by men. Many more men than women succeeded under it.

Depends on your definition of succeeded.

See previous post. 'Interests of the family/clan/nation/state/collective' are shorthand for male interests (insofar as 'male interests' are opposed to 'female interests') because these groupings were controlled by men.

See above about how the feminist worldview hyperfocuses on hegemonic masculine sexism and discounts female chauvinism. Are you saying there were no instances of women controlling their husbands and thereby the family throughout this period by using sexist arguments/rationales and shaming them into things and so on?

I didn't say that, I said that Western societies were built more for men than they were for women.

This is that projection again. This is not how men act, think, or behave. Society was built for society.


A further example that feminist ideology fails to adequately deconstruct sexism, and in fact masks womens sexism from themselves, even in the adherent, heres this study:
https://www.psypost.org/2018/07/study-f ... -men-51693

Study finds women — including feminists — are more attracted to ‘benevolently sexist’ men

[Thanatttynia]

Eh idk man that's the vibe I get from you and a lot of other people. I think it's natural to want there to be large-scale reasons for why bad things have happened, I'm not judging you for it.

It's a way to poison the well when discussing mens issues and nothing more. If you got a spooky scary vibe that they wanted white genocide every time black people talked about racism, it would say more about you than them.

What?

Probably some actual evidence of widespread and systemic misandry the weight and scale of which is such that it overrides all of the evidence to the contrary that I have seen.

That's simple to do. Which areas would you consider most convincing? Justice/Education and so on? There's loads to cover.

As indicated by ‘weight and scale’, there would need to be a lot of evidence. As such, evidence of misandry in any specific area would not be enough to override the evidence of misogyny I have seen and experienced in society generally. It’s simply outside the purview of what we’re doing here. It’s not reasonable for either of us to expect to change the other’s minds when we’re both clearly deadset on our own perspective of this issue; I guess we will have to agree to disagree here.

That's worrying, but I don't know that one isolated study in one aspect of society is evidence of widespread social prejudice, no.

That is a simple connection, yes. It's interesting. There may well be a connection between the education system not working for boys and the suicide epidemic amongst young men, but more research would be needed before I could blame teachers for driving their male students to kill themselves.

There's been more than one study on the matter, this one merely showed that the boys are at least subconsciously aware women teachers are discriminating against them, and divided teachers into "Women" and "Men.", previous studies only showed teachers in general discriminate against boys.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-31751672
(A big study conducted across 60 countries. There are many studies showing this outcome.)

It's not teachers driving men to suicide, its women teachers, as the study notes, men teachers do not behave this way. (Something that undermines the typically feminist view on how sexism works, and gives credence to the notion of female chauvinism being a major form of sexism separate from hegemonic masculine sexism.) but I can cover other things too.

Again, I’m not sure that many studies in one aspect of society are evidence of widespread social prejudice. They are evidence of widespread discrimination in education, which has long been a female profession, as for a long time teaching was one of the only professions available to women.

‘Female teachers driving male students to suicide’ is a bold claim to make. Even if we take such a claim as true, it doesn’t undermine the feminist view on sexism. A typical feminist would most likely see something like that as an example of gender roles harming people (boys are expected to succeed more than girls, but modern education is suited more to girls as it disavows traditionally masculine things we condition boys to like such as violence and punishment and practical education in favour of traditionally feminine things we condition girls to like such as listening and reading and theoretical education.) Such an explanation makes more sense to me than the idea that women teachers are conniving to drive male students to suicide because women are inherently sexist.

Fwiw I'm not completely sold on the idea of representation as pushed by liberal feminists (a/o to liberationists) as being some sort of universal value (i.e more female drone pilots = feminism.) That being said, I think you should consider the gender makeup of the major lobbying groups. They may not be explicitly for men as some major lobbying groups are explicitly for women, but 'men's interests' are going to be served over 'women's interests' by most powerful lobbying groups. Billionaires are mostly men, ergo, most of them aren't going to be pushing for measures that help women more than they help men.

There is no evidence for this being true. Profit lobbying serves one interest, the interest of the business and profit.

My point is that those interests do more to serve the interests of specific men than they serve the interests of specific women. This is because we live in a patriarchal society in which it is easier for men to succeed than it is for women. They do not serve ‘men’s interests’ generally for the exact same reason: because ‘men’s interests’ are already served by society without the need for lobbying groups to push society towards serving them. ‘Men’s interests’ are already served by society because society has always been controlled by men prior to the last few years.

Can you find me an instance of financial lobbying doing something to benefit men over women?

Lobbying is a notoriously secretive industry, so I don’t know where I’d go to find out that sort of information. But corporations were understandably unhappy about things like the Equal Pay Act. Men were paid more than women were for the same work. This benefited men over women.

If not, I suggest you reconsider this, because it seems based in the same flawed view of sexism the foundations of feminism are, the same kind of mentality that caused Jess Phillips to stand up and say every day is international mens day in parliament. It is based in the assumption that men represent mens interests by virtue of being men, but that doesn't have evidence to back it up, and in fact the evidence goes against it, as men are biased slightly in womens favor, and women are biased heavily in womens favor.

In general, people represent their own interests and the interests of those like them. Although people aren’t entirely self-interested, it’s a good summation of human nature. Groups made up mostly of one type of person will therefore represent the interests of that type of person over the interests of other types of people. This is why many feminists view representation as important.

The feminist idea that men represent mens interests is a projection of womens traits on to men, this extends to their notion that society was built for men rather than women because it was built by men, but men don't work that way, and we've got studies to show it. Women represent womens interests, men don't represent mens, they actually represent womens, just less than women do.

This is just straight-up sexism lol. The misogynist’s idea that men and women represent women’s interests is disproved by history, which has shown that thousands of years of male-dominated structures resulted in a situation in which sexism was rampant, women were subjugated to men and were not afforded the same rights and protections as men were.

(See bias studies:)
https://www.bipartisanalliance.com/2018 ... n-for.html

Men & women more strongly blamed men for their own disadvantages, were more supportive of policies that favored women, & donated more to a female-only (vs male-only) homeless shelter. Females showed a stronger in-group bias, perceiving women's harm as more problematic

This seems to disprove your argument.
http://www.apa.org/monitor/dec04/women.aspx

Women are nearly five times more likely to show an automatic preference for their own gender than men are to show such favoritism for their own gender, according to a study in the October issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Vol. 87, No. 4).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15491274

If this is the case, why have thousands of years of male-dominated societies not resulted in a completely egalitarian world? Clearly there is a disconnect between the results of these psychological studies and the actual historical reality we are living in.

Piggybacking off these, let's take another shot at disproving feminist theory:
We've seen the studies on how men around other men don't enforce norms, women enforce them all the time, and in mixed spaces, men start enforcing them. (Completely contrary to the feminist narrative and the projection of their own chauvinism on to men.).
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 5711000321
This is a very damning indictment of feminist portrayals of how sexism is enforced, and is another piece of evidence showing that men are oppressed, given that they do not seem to enforce these norms of their own accord, and that these norms disadvantage them.

It’s really not. How men interact in men-only spaces is only relevant when talking about men-only spaces i.e. not society, which is a mixed space and always has been. You will note that men enforce norms in mixed spaces. Women enforcing them on each other is indicative of the way that some women throughout history have been complicit in the perpetuation of a patriarchal system.

I think both of the approaches you've highlighted are wrong. Men's rights activism has an earned reputation for being misogynist; this has lost them credibility. It doesn't mean they have nothing interesting to say about issues which exclusively or primarily affect men. It's understandable, however, that many mainstream politicians don't want to have anything to do with them. In a similar way, radical feminists have little credibility as they have an earned reputation for being misandrist, but that doesn't mean they don't have anything interesting to say about issues which exclusively or primarily affect women.

We did nothing to earn such a reputation, it was merely feminist assertion that anyone who disagrees with their dogmas (even with well researched and detailed arguments) is a misogynist, or seeks to return to patriarchy, and so on. The vilfiication campaign against us is an expression of the disproportionate lobbying power in play.

Lol! I know from personal experience the rampant misogyny within MRA communities and their ilk.

The family, the clan and the tribe were almost exclusively headed by men; women's voices in these institutions weren't heard, they weren't democratic systems, ergo the interests of the family, the clan, and the tribe were actually the interests of the powerful men who headed the family, the clan, and the tribe.

That's an assertion without evidence. It is not in mens interests to go to war and be disposable and so on. You are again committing the feminist fallacy of assuming men represent mens interests when given power, despite all the evidence against such a notion and that such a notion is merely projection.

These collectives were not democratic systems, therefore they were used by the people at the top to further the interests of the people at the top. The people at the top were men, therefore they were used to further the interests of the men at the top. What’s hard to understand about that? The reason men were used in wars is probably because men are more biologically suited to combat, being in general physically stronger than women. Women had other roles in these collectives. You will note that it wasn’t hordes of upper-class men who were sent off to die in wars - it was lower-class men. This proves that these collectives didn’t represent the interests of lower-class people; it doesn’t disprove that these collectives represented the interests of men.

Women were routinely subjugated to men throughout the entire course of history.

This is an assertion born out of the feminist movements massive levels of insecurity about its necessity and relevance. Womens rights have waxed and waned throughout history, at times being equal in many respects in some societies, at times not. The drive to portray history as uniformly the oppression of women by men is necessary for feminists to continue to pretend their ideas are the only way women can gain influence, when a non-ideologically biased view of history easily proves otherwise.

It’s an assertion based on historical evidence. Please provide an example of women being equal to men in any Western society at any time prior to the present day.

In addition, your view is based on the assertion of a particular dynamic that feminism focuses on, while rationalizing other dynamics as the same (they aren't.).

It is based on the assumption hegemomic masculine sexism was the norm in all places and times, and in discounting female chauvinism as a potential dynamic in relationships. Is a man who is beaten, berated and belittled and pressured and so on by his spouse to behave certain ways and act certain ways in line with sexist ideas not also oppressed?

Oppression is not a zero-sum game. What is intersectionality

It is possible to be both oppressed and an oppressor.

I remind you that the punishment for male victims of domestic violence historically (should they make it known to the public), was public ridicule and riding the donkey backwards and so on. The feminist movement has sought to portray one type of sexism in history as the uniform, when there were many dynamics in place. This erasure of female perpetration of sexism and subjugation, and hyperfocus on male perpetration, is rooted in their dogma and worldview, and leads to the problems with the movement we see today.

That’s a great example of how sexism has hurt men. I remind you that there was no punishment for male perpetrators of domestic violence historically except in extreme cases.

Ignoring that historically, women could be oppressive enforcers of sexist norms on their spouses and so on for the womans own benefit, is essential to casting history as men oppressing women as feminism does.

Find me a serious feminist who ignores the fact that women can perpetuate sexist norms.

There have been thousands of civilisations; of these, a handful have been matriarchal. Individual women absolutely perpetuated and in many cases succeeded under this patriarchal system, but that fact cannot negate the larger historical reality that women were on the whole oppressed by men. Many more men than women succeeded under it.

Depends on your definition of succeeded.

Yes, it does. Any definition of success that we have would necessarily be alien to people who lived long ago. How about I rephrase that as ‘men were helped more by the patriarchal system than women were.’

See previous post. 'Interests of the family/clan/nation/state/collective' are shorthand for male interests (insofar as 'male interests' are opposed to 'female interests') because these groupings were controlled by men.

See above about how the feminist worldview hyperfocuses on hegemonic masculine sexism and discounts female chauvinism. Are you saying there were no instances of women controlling their husbands and thereby the family throughout this period by using sexist arguments/rationales and shaming them into things and so on?

No, and that’s a wilful misrepresentation of an argument if I’ve ever seen one. Are you saying that such a situation was the norm, that men have always secretly been controlled by women?

I didn't say that, I said that Western societies were built more for men than they were for women.

This is that projection again. This is not how men act, think, or behave. Society was built for society.

What am I projecting? Society was built for men. That you can’t see that is a projection of your limited worldview on to history.

[West Leas Oros 2]

Not sure if I’m in the right place, but those of you who know me probably are aware of my old story about my past of white man hatred, and I’d like to ask what can be done to combat such things so that no one else has to be misled into an ideology of vengeance and hatred.