We could start listing examples of injustices, each one of us could find them, and we would only get farther from finding any solution, or farther from just having a meaningful discussion.
I am not negating that there are prejudice against men. I simply wish to point out the obvious - these prejudice are a product of patriarchy.
It was not feminism that painted the picture of the man as incompetent parent. It is a very old tenet of patriarchy, that mothers are better parents. That men go around drinking, fighting, they are too aggressive, too incompetent at small housework... These things are really old. They are patriarchy.
It forces the assertion that "if not for patriarchy, these prejudices wouldn't exist."
I'm not sure that that logically follows.
> It was not feminism that painted the picture of the man as incompetent parent. It is a very old tenet of patriarchy, that mothers are better parents. That men go around drinking, fighting, they are too aggressive, too incompetent at small housework... These things are really old. They are patriarchy.
You're certain this paragraph is true? Patriarchy holds a male at the head of the organizational unit under the belief that that person will do a better job managing that organization. This doesn't lead to "he's the head of the house but a useless parent." I'm fairly certain that that is a modern invention for comedy.
> It forces the assertion that "if not for patriarchy, these prejudices wouldn't exist."
Implications cannot be automatically reversed, as anyone visiting this site should know ;) I.e. "Patriarchy => prejudice X" does not automatically imply "!Patriarchy => !prejudice X".
As for your explanation on patriarchy, it is simplistic. Probably all ideological systems that humans have ever followed have been rich with mythology, symbolism, and various ideals. Patriarchy, like any other human system of thought, is not merely such a cold, pseudo-rational conclusion. There are always ideals that come with a system, most importantly, in this case, the concept of the ideal man and woman.
Basically, ask yourself, why was it thought that men would better "manage the organization"? What characteristics were idealized in men to make them fit this role? What is the ideal "man of the family"?
Well, I used the context of your assertion, I didn't assume it could be automatically reversed.
> I am not negating that there are prejudice against men. I simply wish to point out the obvious - these prejudice are a product of patriarchy.
The context of this statement implies the removal of patriarchy will affect these prejudices, and, as it makes no sense to argue for the removal of patriarchy if the effect would be negative (!patriarchy => n * (prejudice X) where n > 1), and since the assertion establishes a correlation between the two (n cannot be 1), we're led to assume you mean !patriarchy => n * (prejudice X) where n < 1.
Patriarchy doesn't traditionally espouse the tenant of a useless father figure in the household. The distilled archetype being discussed is a modern comedy trope born of gender exploration from the last 40 years.
Actually, patriarchy does espouse such a tenet. The household is meant for the woman, it is her responsibility, while a man is outside, working for the family. Even if they were not beneath him, an ideal man in patriarchy simply wouldn't be bothered with such menial tasks. This can only naturally produce such a trope. And, OTOH, women are very strongly associated with care and nurture for children, reinforcing the prejudice which causes the unjust treatment of men in custody cases.
Well, that's what I get... I try really hard to keep it civil, to address your comments honestly (even though I was tempted to ask you if you ever met any people, so disconnected from reality your ideas seemed), and in return I get this pathetic piece of ad hominem. Shame on you.
> Even if they were not beneath him, an ideal man in patriarchy simply wouldn't be bothered with such menial tasks. This can only naturally produce such a trope (Emphasis mine)
I made an observation given keying words and phrases you used. I've no doubt your description came from an honestly held belief. Describing the ideal male in a patriarchal society to find raising a family or keeping a household to be menial and beneath him, indicates a viewpoint based on disrespecting women and considering them less, rather than an illogical division of family and social duties based on physical gender differences.
I already answered this - all systems come with ideals, myths, additional narratives that serve to explain why things are the way they are. And so patriarchy comes with the concept of the ideal man and woman. This is not something I invented.
Patriarchy is not merely a value-neutral division of labor, or whatever your cold impersonal description was meant to convey. A key component is placing greater value on men, and hence bestowing them with various privileges, but also obligations, expectations.
Finally, even if patriarchy did not insist on male incompetence in the house, the very fact that men never do housework, and are not even allowed to do it unless they want to belittle themselves before others, means that it is very easy to imagine a Real Man (TM) stumbling around during babysitting.
If anyone's trolling, it's you. Even if under the "patriarchal" model, the men were "incompetent at small housework" and "wouldn't be bothered with menial tasks", that doesn't imply they would be bad parents. Parenting isn't just taking care of the child, it's also parental guidance, being a good role model, instilling a sense of responsibility and the value of hard work, etc. All of these are thing even a working man (or any working parent) could do.
No. E.g. The aggressively anti-male prejudice baked into domestic violence law is entirely the work of feminists.
There are many other similar prejudices now. So it's simply dishonest to pretend that feminism has had no influence on family law, education, or many other areas where boys and men are struggling.
> While domestic abuse from women against men is important please don't make the mistake of saying the levels of severity of violence is the same.
The parent wasn't. S/he said:
> The aggressively anti-male prejudice baked into domestic violence law is entirely the work of feminists
which is true regardless of the statistics; under the US rules (AFAIK), police must arrest someone as a result of a domestic violence call, and the guidance is that they must arrest the "primary aggressor", the person who is bigger, stronger, etc. - deemed more dangerous (i.e. the man), regardless of who's actually being violent.
Even if men were attacking women in 90% of the cases, arresting men in 99% of the cases is sexist anti-male prejudice.
> under the US rules (AFAIK), police must arrest someone as a result of a domestic violence call, and the guidance is that they must arrest the "primary aggressor", the person who is bigger, stronger, etc. - deemed more dangerous (i.e. the man), regardless of who's actually being violent.
There's several errors in this:
(1) There aren't really one set of "US rules" on this level of specificity for domestic violence calls,
(2) Under the Constitution, arrests without probable cause are forbidden, and the mere fact of a call will not always support probable cause, so insofar as there are "US rules", they prohibit the form of "must arrest" rules described,
(3) Where rules do require arrest of the primary aggressor in cases of mutual combat in domestic violence, the rules for determining who the "primary aggressor" is generally do not consider "who is bigger, stronger, etc.", but instead consider the actual injuries that have been inflicted in the particular case, past history of domestic violence of domestic violence complaints, and whether one party's violence was in self defense or defence of others. A few also include consideration of the potential future injuries as well as those other factors, which is the closest thing to the "deemed more dangerous" standard you propose that might way against men. [0]
None allow arrests of one party regardless of who is actually being violent, as you claim.
A result of the weapon of choice in domestic abuse. Men favor fists, while women favor improvised weapons (the legal term as in sticks, stones, or whatever is reachable).
Weapons in untrained hands do generally less damage than fists, so men in general cause more damage in fights. However, if the weapon do cause damage, that damage has a higher risk of being major.
So which one is more server, a untrained knife wielding attacker or someone going for you with their fists. The legal system has one view, the statistics has one.
It's also dishonest to put such words in my mouth, when they were never said ;)
The disconnect, IMO, stems from the fact that women are fighting, and men are not. Or, perhaps better said, men are just beginning to frame an opposition. Women have stood up, organized, and brought attention to their problems (which were, without any doubt, seriously greater than men's), and achieved many victories. Standard democratic process. Now it's high time for men to do the same. However, if male action gets reduced to just attacking feminism and blaming feminism for everything, that sucks. It is one system, patriarchy, that causes all these problems. If some women and feminists are blind to the problems of men, is that really a surprise? Fully understanding someone else, someone whose shoes you haven't walked in, is incredibly hard. What we need is discussion, finding understanding, and fighting the common source of all these problems - patriarchy. And nobody can stand for men, but men themselves.
> If some women and feminists are blind to the problems of men, is that really a surprise?
Yes, honestly, though perhaps it shouldn't. The point of feminism was to bring equality to the sexes. In places where it has been successful, to see it continue to push forward as a way of achieving victories for women causes spite and backlash. I have low hopes for a real men's version of feminism to form, for exactly the reasons laid out in this article. The main problem (as this article points out) is that any man who admits to difficulties or problems is seen as not-a-man. The current state of MRA might be sad, but they are generally despised first and foremost because men who complain are not respectable men. Perhaps its just a pipe dream, but one would hope that feminists would remember that the original goal was equality for both sexes, and would help us out where needed.
I agree with a lot of what you say. But waiting for someone else to fight your fight never worked for anybody. It's just the way it is, people have a hard time putting themselves in others' shoes, and everyone naturally tends to place greater emphasis on their own problems. And then there's the fact that problems women face still exist.
But for me, the problem with MRAs is not that they are "unmanly". They remind me of something like a slave, who sees another former slave now walking free, and instead of now demanding his own freedom, he fights for the other guy to become a slave again...
You are probably right, MRAs probably will be seen as pussies and belittled, but their response, IMO, should be to embrace it. Yes, I am a pussy. If that's what an intelligent, reflective man is, then let it be - I am a pussy. Kind of like the relationship between feminists and the word "bitch". And that is for some men one hard pill to swallow.
Now that feminism has won a lot of victories, men are in a position that they are still burdened by patriarchic expectations, but no longer enjoy the corresponding privileges. The right answer is to fight the expectations, IMO.
> but their response, IMO, should be to embrace it
I simply do not see this happening. Before people ever do this, they will attempt to accomplish their goals by easier, more acceptable, less self-socially destroying means, like wrapping their complaints in traditional/religious roles or (likely reactionary) ideology. But I don't want to detract from this any longer. The point I was trying to make was far more succinctly put by marrs in anther reply to you.
What sucks is if a men's movement has to accept the same B.S. underpinnings as feminism because feminists can't handle others disagreeing with them.
The whole patriarchy critique is a biased philosophical position of a particular social movement. If you guys like it, fine, but you don't get to force it upon others.
Yeah, exactly, forcing things upon others. Or, as people usually call this, a conversation :D You are being a hypocrite right now. You may disagree, but you may not accuse me of forcing anything just because I said something you disagree with.
You could put a minimal amount of effort into charitable readings of the comments of others.
Feminism has gone so far as to brand the men's rights movement a hate group, they've gone out of their way to characterize men's rights books as rape-apologizing hate speech, and in some cases[0][1] have actively shut down talks given from what is basically the MRA viewpoint.
This is clearly coercion so I feel justified in saying feminism is attempting to "force" the men's rights movement to develop in a certain way.
Am I saying you're personally trying to force me to do anything right now? That wasn't my intention. As for your view that we should all get together and blame the patriarchy, allow me to rephrase myself for clarity: thanks, but no thanks.
That would have been one charitable reading :D Of course I understood you as if you were implying that I am forcing something. Thank you for the clarification!
I cannot really speak for others, I represent no one but myself. I can only guess that, to some extent, such reaction from some feminists is simply defence. The MRA narrative is too focused on feminism, and has too much relativizing, "who's the greater victim" talk, which is stupid.
But I also definitely agree that some of the reaction is just a lack of will to hear what the other side has to say, which sucks.
Pointing out that feminism has been damaging to men and the male psyche is accurate, your movement has had collateral damage and you need to deal with that.
It's impossibile to stand up for masculinity as being a natural and good thing without butting heads with THE group who says masculinity is an overvalued social construct that needs to be destroyed.
On victimhood, it's completely childish for a movement to spend 50 years talking about how victimized its members are and the moment somebody else starts using the same tactic it's "let's not talk about victimhood, it's sooo stupid!" It's a classic "learned it from watching you" scenario.
On who I blame, I don't have a group that I blame for everything. We live in a difficult world where survival is a challenge, there will always be things that are nobody's fault. People who have a default boogeyman use them in times of uncertainty: "the gays caused the earthquake", "the patriarchy caused me to miss that promotion", "I drink because of my ex-wife", etc.
But do I blame feminism for the things it's responsible for? You bet.
edit: I don't mind donwvotes, but I do take notice when something is downvoted in less time than it would take to read and reflect on the comment.
First of all, hypocrisy again - you say blaming patriarchy is lame, "default boogeyman" and so on, but you completely fail to see you use feminism in exactly the same way. MRAs typically blame EVERYTHING on feminism. Any kind of problem men face today must somehow be caused by feminism, there is rarely any other explanation that is acceptable.
Second, I did not say that pointing out problems men face is stupid, far from it. What I said was that comparing is stupid. "Who's the bigger victim" is stupid talk. Negating the problems women face, as if this were a competition, some kind of zero-sum game, is stupid. Try some of that charitable reading you recommended yourself.
I tried to make it clear that I think feminism should only be blamed for things it's responsible for. Really.
Victimhood is almost always relative and I've spent my entire life hearing about how society victimizes females as compared to males, you can't just rewrite the history of the movement when it's convenient.
In fact if you listen to them these evil MRAs are saying the exact same thing you are right now, that all the victim playing of feminism is disrupting any societal discussion of men's problems. The day feminism stops caricaturizing men in order to talk about female victimhood is the day you get to complain about MRAs entering the conversation. If you think feminism doesn't misrepresent men then you're part of the problem being fought against.
And when I suggested you read comments more charitably it's because I thought you weren't and it was causing you to miss the point. It wasn't just to hurt your feelings, this isn't reddit.
> ...I've spent my entire life hearing about how society victimizes females as compared to males...
Maybe that's what you heard from it, but it's not the position of feminism that, e.g., rape is bad merely because women get raped more than men. Rape is bad, period. The point is that the problem affects women disproportionately more, and in the past men could get away with it without any punishment. So, women need, and have fought for, extra protection. And of course, for the general dismantling of the power imbalance between men and women. Why some men immediately internalize this, and feel like someone just called all men rapists and woman haters is really beyond me.
In any case, we will probably have to agree to disagree. In my experience, MRA is not really about anything else than feminism. There are some who actually care about the specific injustices faced by men, and some who have endured them directly (and you may be shocked but I am a feminist and still support them...). But the MRA movement is really just using these things as tools in a fight purely against feminism. Because, it's always feminism. Nothing else can be at fault but feminism. Every male problem is either caused by feminists, or feminists are indirectly to blame because they didn't fix it already (?!). Because, yeah, fuck all the rapes, domestic violence and shit, the most important thing all feminists have to care about when fighting these injustices is - men, of course! :D
A lot of feminists probably go to far, and dismiss valid concerns too easily, but to take that as a reason to focus on feminism, and to constantly negate the whole of feminism makes it clear that the MRA movement, for the most part, is just anti-feminism and nothing more. That the problems men face are being used as a fig leaf to cover up simple misogyny.
> It was not feminism that painted the picture of the man as incompetent parent.
No, but it is the reason that this is the modern trope men are reduced to in modern media. Matt Groening has gone on the record saying that the reason he created Homer and Bart as incompetent / lovable / stupid / trouble makers, and Lisa / Marge as competent, intelligent role models, is because at the time the series was coming out he felt that was a good way to avoid getting negative publicity for his new series from various feminist groups around the country. No one was going to protest a stupid male role model, or a trouble making male kid, but making the women the same way might, and making them the positive characters would win his show support from feminist groups. Most modern sitcoms follow this same format for the same reason.
Wait, what are we even talking about here any more - are you saying men contemplate suicide because feminists make them feel bad about themselves? Because of sitcom tropes?
Anyway, feminists fight for women. They are mostly women. They had a serious bunch of wrongs to right, more than just some unfavorable sitcom tropes. If they were not, during this fight, sufficiently sensitized to the problems of men, can you really blame them? Do you even realize how unjust and hypocritical such a judgement is? Had feminism followed such standards, it would have never achieved anything, and women would to this day be unable to vote, own property, etc etc.
Men would do well to stand up for themselves in these matters, and not allow themselves to find scapegoats in feminism.
And this is the problem I have with feminists. We should be fighting for each other, not against each other. We are all on this planet together and we all deserve equal rights and opportunities.
The idea that we achieve this by having women fight for women's rights and men fight for men's rights is absurd. It might have been inevitable to begin with, but we're not living in the 60s any more, and if we don't move away from this adversarial position then of course people will start to feel threatened, retreat to fundamentalist positions, and react in the way you object to.
> The idea that we achieve this by having women fight for women's rights and men fight for men's rights is absurd.
No, it is the essence of democracy. I cannot go around preaching, protesting, speaking in the name of other people. Everyone must stand up for themselves first, and then, if their cause is just and recognized as such by society, wide support will follow. Waiting for other people to represent you better is completely ridiculous.
> ...this adversarial position...
You seem to be implying that if people stand up for themselves, they must automatically be opponents. This is not true.
Honestly, if you held a gun to my head, I could not give you a definition of the word. I have looked for definitions, but they're very vague and contradictory.
From usage, it seems to mean "a powerful and sinister force that oppresses women".
Consider that if you go back far enough, men were considered the better parent. I'm sure Patriarchy is to blame for that even though it was to blame for men being considered the worse parent as well.
It couldn't have anything to do with women risking their lives for 9 months carrying the child to birth in their bellies? Or that they tend to breastfeed their children for months after birth, which men simply can not do?
Sure, of course. It's probably both. But you do understand that men get discriminated in child custody trials even if the child is already well weened off the tit?
The point is that the situation is not created by patriarchy, but by biology. That women tend to be the caregivers is simply an extension of the beginnings (pregnancy, higher investment in bringing the child to life).
Personally I suspect that women being allowed to be the primary caregiver is actually a privilege they earn because their investment in having the children is so much higher. Feminism needs you to believe that being a stay-at-home mum is a horrible ordeal and a hallmark of oppression. The opposite is probably true, if you consider the average job. There may be jobs that are more fun than taking care of your own children, but most jobs aren't like that.
Consider a stay-at-home dad. He would be a very expensive babysitter (half of the mother's income). Why should women accept that?
Btw., I've heard that in custody trials men actually tend to come out quite well. But I think it has to be taken into consideration that fathers probably only go to court when they see a chance to win to begin with (mother is a crack whore or whatever). So that statistic alone is not telling much.
Which gender legally gets the kids, house and alimony in +90% of divorces?