• WISDOMfromPO-MO
    753
    Many years ago, a much younger--and apparently very naive--me purchased and read The Myth of Make Power: Why Men are the Disposable Sex, by Warren Farrell. Little did I know that Farrell and anybody like him would be branded a misogynist and that any work like his would be condemned as misogyny. But apparently that is the political and social climate a lot of us are in: any deviation from a certain orthodoxy will be attacked as heresy and misogyny.

    Anyway, part of that orthodoxy is the assertion that males have all of the power and receive all of the benefits of the dominant system, females benefit in no way from that system and are brutally oppressed by it, and, therefore, no organized movement fighting for the rights of males is needed.

    Well, if it is true that women's liberation covers all oppression and nothing else is needed then there should be nothing found outside of women's liberation that is not also found inside women's liberation.

    Well, in the late 1990's I learned from that aforementioned book that apparently in some jurisdictions the way that the law is written a woman can give birth to and raise a child without ever telling the biological father, and then sue him retroactively for child support payments. That is just one example of bad things that hurt men--and more importantly, children--and treat them as less than equal that in twenty years I have never heard again, let alone from anywhere inside women's liberation, and that I probably never would have heard about if nobody decided that there are men's rights issues that need attention.

    But I am not so naive now. I am sure that somebody will say here that Warren Farrell is a misogynistic liar, that the laws in question are being misrepresented/distorted, that the laws in question are needed to protect women from patriarchal domination, etc.

    I do not know of anything else on the contemporary or historical political and intellectual landscape that is presented as a story with only one side and is used to completely deflect, suppress, or eradicate another point-of-view. It has to be the most totalizing orthodoxy ever. Even the world's major religions--supposedly the most repressive dogma in the world--acknowledge and listen to other belief systems.
  • WISDOMfromPO-MO
    753
    I should probably add that somebody who is reading this thread is probably saying that just by bringing the topic up I am being complicit to misogyny and complicit in the systematic oppression and domination of women.
  • WISDOMfromPO-MO
    753
    I should also add that the Southern Poverty Law Center has named men's rights activists as a hate group.

    I hope that that does not include Farrell, but it wouldn't surprise me.

    You have to be sure to dot every i and cross every t when you are talking about gender politics.
  • BC
    13.1k
    BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS, Weekly Earnings, 2nd Qr. 2017 Report

    Men and women's income compared
    ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... . ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... . ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... . ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... Difference ... ... ...
    ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...1st decile ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 9th decile lowest $ highest $
    everyone, age over 16, averaged
    ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... Men $423 ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... . $2,300
    ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...Women $397 ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... . $1,827 ... ... ... ... . $26....$473
    everyone over 25
    high school only, averaged ... ... .... ... .. ... $395 ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... . $1,489
    ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... . ... ... ... ... ... ... Men $418 ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... . $1,661
    ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... . ... ... ... ... ... .Women $371 ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... . $1,156 ... ... ... ... $47....$505
    everyone, MA or PhD, averaged, over 25
    ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... . ... ... ... ... ... ... . Men $768 ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... . $3,784
    ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... . ... ... ... ... ... Women $673 ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... . $2,610 ... ... ... ... $95.....$1,174

    Men tend to earn higher wages both at the bottom of the income distribution (the first decile, above) and at the top (the ninth decile, above).

    If all men and women had exactly the same work experience, it would be clearer that an injustice existed. However, men and women don't have the same experience. The jobs are frequently not the same, the hours worked may not be the same, the duration of work (years) may not be the same, and so on.

    If all men and women all performed diligently, pursued advancement with the same eagerness, and so forth, it would be clearer that an injustice existed. However, note the range in both men and women with advanced degrees: $673 to $3784 -- a range of $3,111. Apparently some men, and some women, are more capable of obtaining higher wages than other workers.

    I have an advanced degree (MA) and yet my weekly income tended, on average, to be in the 1st decile. Why was that? It was because I did not seek the highest wage job possible, did not seek advancement eagerly, and did not always perform as diligently as I could have. I took off time between jobs, and did not stay at any job longer than 7 years.

    From what I have seen in 40 years of work is that men and women who very much want to advance as far as they can, and earn as much as they can, generally do much better than people who don't have the same focused drive. And they tend to both do quite well economically.

    Because it is very difficult to capture qualitative differences in work experiences in a labor report, it is also difficult to say that any class of people is discriminated against, only on the basis of income.
  • WISDOMfromPO-MO
    753
    apparently in some jurisdictions the way that the law is written a woman can give birth to and raise a child without ever telling the biological father, and then sue him retroactively for child support payments...WISDOMfromPO-MO

    If that is true, it basically reduces men to nothing more than sperm donors.
  • WISDOMfromPO-MO
    753
    Because it is very difficult to capture qualitative differences in work experiences in a labor report, it is also difficult to say that any class of people is discriminated against, only on the basis of income.Bitter Crank

    Warren Farrell shows in The Myth of Male Power that men, among other differences, have longer commutes to work on average than women do.

    I guess that puts him in the same class as the Ku Klux Klan in some people's minds.
  • BC
    13.1k
    The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) are Social Justice Warriors par excellence. The American liberal, receiving many pleas for donations, has to decide whether he likes the approach of the SPLC or the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) better. The SPLC goes after its targets in court and attempts to destroy the groups legally and/or financially The ACLU is more likely to defend the rights of American nazis to express their views in an orderly manner.

    SPLC lists every hate group it can find, almost a thousand (that's their raison d'être) but they don't tell us much about these groups -- like how large they are, what bad things they actually do, what their specific beliefs are, and so on. We can't tell how much of a threat some skinhead group (with maybe 5 members) in western Washington is to the American Way of Life. Or, for that matter, whether skinheads ARE part of the American Way of Life.
  • Wosret
    3.4k
    Seriously though, guys are supposed to defend women, or at least it is upstanding, and more pleasant to see than them bashing them, if not just poking fun and in good humor, but it is also good to see women defending men, that's what I like to watch when I look for my anti-feminism.

    I don't like to see men bashing women, or women bashing men. I like my men to defend women, and my women to defend men. Seems far more heroic, and less self invested.
  • Baden
    15.6k
    Well, congratulations on proving you are oppressed @WISDOMfromPO-MO on the basis of quoting one questionable law applicable to some US states. Good luck with the placard printing and the whining.
  • WISDOMfromPO-MO
    753
    ↪WISDOMfromPO-MO The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) are Social Justice Warriors par excellence. The American liberal, receiving many pleas for donations, has to decide whether he likes the approach of the SPLC or the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) better. The SPLC goes after its targets in court and attempts to destroy the groups legally and/or financially The ACLU is more likely to defend the rights of American nazis to express their views in an orderly manner.

    SPLC lists every hate group it can find, almost a thousand (that's their raison d'être) but they don't tell us much about these groups -- like how large they are, what bad things they actually do, what their specific beliefs are, and so on. We can't tell how much of a threat some skinhead group (with maybe 5 members) in western Washington is to the American Way of Life. Or, for that matter, whether skinheads ARE part of the American Way of Life.
    Bitter Crank

    After reading this response I will have to side with the MRAs.

    I can't comment on the 99% of "manosphere" elements that the Southern Poverty Law Center lists that I know nothing about, but I know that I have received a lot of valuable information and thinking by reading the A Voice for Men website, reading the work of Warren Farrell--who A Voice for Men founder Paul Elam apparently sees as a mentor--, etc.

    In The Myth of Male Power Farrell calls high school football "Government-sanctioned child abuse", or something like that. That was long before what we now know about football and concussions, CTE, etc. was revealed. It was long before former NFL players started committing suicide one after another and donating their brains for research--and CTE being found in those brains.

    Alas, apparently we are supposed to think that a scholar and activist who was well ahead of almost everybody else in publicly sounding the alarm about football and the well-being of boys and men is a misogynist and an extremist spreading hate and bigotry.

    Maybe if men's rights had been taken more seriously a lot of destroyed lives could have been prevented and a lot of lost lives could have been avoided.
  • WISDOMfromPO-MO
    753
    Seriously though, guys are supposed to defend women, or at least it is upstanding, and more pleasant to see than them bashing them, if not just poking fun and in good humor, but it is also good to see women defending men, that's what I like to watch when I look for my anti-feminism.

    I don't like to see men bashing women, or women bashing men. I like my men to defend women, and my women to defend men. Seems far more heroic, and less self invested.
    Wosret

    It is not about civility, or the lack thereof, in the war between the sexes. I have already covered how uncivil and irrational gender politics inevitably always seems to be (look at some of the fallacious responses in this thread for even more evidence).

    It is about whether or not we as a society and as a civilization really believe in the things we supposedly believe in, such as protecting the individual.

    If one man is treated unfairly and unjustly by the system, if the women's liberation movement is oblivious to that injustice or does not care, and if the men's rights movement is the only thing that does bring attention to and concern about that injustice, then the assertion that a men's rights movement is not needed is false.
  • Michael
    14k
    Well, in the late 1990's I learned from that aforementioned book that apparently in some jurisdictions the way that the law is written a woman can give birth to and raise a child without ever telling the biological father, and then sue him retroactively for child support payments.WISDOMfromPO-MO

    I believe the rationale is that it's in the child's best interests, and the child's best interests are more important than the interests of the parents. It has nothing to do with gender.

    A cursory search offers this:

    Once, only fathers were legally required to pay child support. Now, under the law, all parents have a legal duty to support their children.

    ...

    When parents divorce -- or sometimes, even if they never married --- the duty of support changes. For the noncustodial parent, it is enforced through the imposition of formal child support obligations.

    ...

    States tend to follow one of three basic formulas:

    First, some states, such as Wisconsin, simply require noncustodial parents to pay a flat percentage of their income to the custodial parents based on the number of children being supported.

    Second, a majority of states use the "income-shares" model. In this model, support is calculated based on a percentage of combined parental income. Then, each parent's portion is calculated based on his or her relative earnings.

    Third, a handful of states use a model that first carves out necessary expenses for parental support, and then assigns a percentage of the remaining income for child support.

    Similar laws are in place in the UK:

    Child support laws in the UK therefore obligate a non resident parent to pay a periodic amount of maintenance in order to provide financial assistance for the child in their home environment.

    It's the parent who isn't raising the child that has to pay child support, irrespective of the parent's sex. It's just obviously impossible for a father to have a child without the mother's knowledge.
  • TimeLine
    2.7k
    nyway, part of that orthodoxy is the assertion that males have all of the power and receive all of the benefits of the dominant system, females benefit in no way from that system and are brutally oppressed by it, and, therefore, no organized movement fighting for the rights of males is needed.WISDOMfromPO-MO

    This is no different to a racist complaining about how underrepresented minorities are getting all the benefits through positive discrimination.

    And then you say:
    Warren Farrell shows in The Myth of Male Power that men, among other differences, have longer commutes to work on average than women do.WISDOMfromPO-MO

    Let me welcome you to the desert of the REAL

    1. Global estimates published by WHO indicate that about 1 in 3 (35%) women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime.
    2. Most of this violence is intimate partner violence. Worldwide, almost one third (30%) of women who have been in a relationship report that they have experienced some form of physical and/or sexual violence by their intimate partner in their lifetime.
    3. Globally, as many as 38% of murders of women are committed by a male intimate partner.
    Violence can negatively affect women’s physical, mental, sexual and reproductive health, and may increase vulnerability to HIV.
    4. Factors associated with increased risk of perpetration of violence include low education, child maltreatment or exposure to violence in the family, harmful use of alcohol, attitudes accepting of violence and gender inequality.
    5. Factors associated with increased risk of experiencing intimate partner and sexual violence include low education, exposure to violence between parents, abuse during childhood, attitudes accepting violence and gender inequality.
    6. At least 20.9 million adults and children are bought and sold worldwide into commercial sexual servitude, forced labor and bonded labor. About 2 million children are exploited every year in the global commercial sex trade.
    7. 54% of trafficking victims are trafficked for sexual exploitation. Women and girls make up 96% of victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation.
    8. It is estimated that of all women who were the victims of homicide globally in 2012, almost half were killed by intimate partners or family members, compared to less than six per cent of men killed in the same year.
    9. Worldwide, almost 750 million women and girls alive today were married before their 18th birthday. Child marriage is more common in West and Central Africa, where over 4 in 10 girls were married before age 18, and about 1 in 7 were married or in union before age 15. Child marriage often results in early pregnancy and social isolation, interrupts schooling, limits the girl’s opportunities and increases her risk of experiencing domestic violence.
    10. Around 120 million girls worldwide (slightly more than 1 in 10) have experienced forced intercourse or other forced sexual acts at some point in their lives. By far the most common perpetrators of sexual violence against girls are current or former husbands, partners or boyfriends
    11. At least 200 million women and girls alive today have undergone female genital mutilation in the 30 countries with representative data on prevalence. In most of these countries, the majority of girls were cut before age 5.
    12. One in 10 women in the European Union report having experienced cyber-harassment since the age of 15 (including having received unwanted, offensive sexually explicit emails or SMS messages, or offensive, inappropriate advances on social networking sites). The risk is highest among young women between 18 and 29 years of age.
    13. Twenty-three per cent of female undergraduate university students reported having experienced sexual assault or sexual misconduct in a survey across 27 universities in the United States in 2015. Rates of reporting to campus officials, law enforcement or others ranged from 5 to 28 per cent, depending on the specific type of behaviour.

    But, we wouldn't want you to be late for work, now would we.

    It seems clear to me that no amount of reasoning will enable you to see how absurd you are. And that is what you are.
  • Meta
    185
    I am shocked that my post have been deleted. I will try to form my thoughts in a different way so nobody gets offended.
    We know that females are evolutionarily programmed to attract males in order to reproduce (females choose one male). Males are programmed to reproduce with as many females as possible to diversify their gene pool. Humans and a lot of other species have this tendency.
    In today's society women use their arsenal to attract men. This arsenal consists of dressing or specific acts. The same can be told about men but while men are programmed to 'accept' every women; women usually will only accept a small % of the male population. This can lead to a lot of sexual frustration in society because a lot of males will be ignored meanwhile their senses excited by women. So as a member of the group of the ignored males I really need somebody to defend my rights as I get offended every time I see a beautiful seductive woman ignoring and despising me.

    As I am free to express my opinion and I did not inted to offend anybody I ask you not to delete my post again.
  • Michael
    14k
    We know that females are evolutionarily programmed to attract males in order to reproduce (females choose one male). Males are programmed to reproduce with as many females as possible to diversify their gene pool.Meta

    Do you have a study to back this up?

    According to this, regarding the International Sexuality Description Project, led by David P. Schmitt, PhD, which appeared in the July 2003 issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology:

    "Both men and women show signs of being programmed to be monogamous in a certain way and promiscuous in a certain way," Schmitt tells WebMD. "The main difference is in short-term mating strategies, or how men and women go about being promiscuous."

    "We don't say men and women always opt for short-term strategies," Schmitt says. "What we are talking about is that when they go for infidelity or promiscuity, men focus on large numbers and women focus on quality."

    What really irks Schmitt is that many people interpret this finding to mean that women are designed to be faithful but men are predestined to be promiscuous. That's not what the evidence shows. Instead, both women and men are fully equipped for one-night stands and lifelong relationships.

    So as a member of the group of the ignored males I really need somebody to defend my rights as I get offended every time I see a beautiful seductive woman ignoring and despising me.Meta

    This isn't very clear. In concrete terms, what exactly do you expect? If I were tasked with defending your rights, what do I have to do?
  • Meta
    185
    I don't have any studies to back this up. I think this is what they teach at the medicore universities in my shitty country. (In Evolutionary psychology) And I think this is common sense. Because if a female has a child that has major biological consequences. Also this takes at least 9 months from the life of the female. Therefore they have to focus on quality. Males can have as many children as they want without any biological consequences.

    For the other question. One thing you could do is to stop propagating the imaginary overmasculin male ubermensch stereotype in the media and start propagating other values people have.
  • Michael
    14k
    For the other question. One thing you could do is to stop propagating the imaginary overmasculin male ubermensch stereotype in the media and start propagating other values people have.Meta

    I'm not exactly sure what the content of advertising has to do with your rights.
  • Meta
    185
    Well I don't want to explain I think it is not too hard to see the point.
  • Michael
    14k
    Well I don't want to explain I think it is not too hard to see the point.Meta

    Then I must be dense, because I don't see it. Not only do I fail to see how current advertising affects your rights, I also fail to see how a change in advertising would address the fact that you "get offended every time [you] see a beautiful seductive woman ignoring and despising [you]".
  • Baden
    15.6k
    As I am free to express my opinion and I did not inted to offend anybody I ask you not to delete my post again.Meta

    You're subject to the guidelines like anyone else and your previous post was reprehensible the way you phrased it. The present one is mostly just very odd. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you just badly worded what you were trying to say. (Please PM in future by the way or start a feedback discussion.)
  • T Clark
    13k
    I should also add that the Southern Poverty Law Center has named men's rights activists as a hate group.

    I hope that that does not include Farrell, but it wouldn't surprise me.

    You have to be sure to dot every i and cross every t when you are talking about gender politics.
    WISDOMfromPO-MO

    I went on the SPLC's web page. They have a list of hate groups. I sorted by "men's rights." There were 24 hits. None of them were mainstream organizations. Most were explicitly racist. Can you find me a men's rights group that you would be willing to be associated with that is on the list?
  • T Clark
    13k
    This is no different to a racist complaining about how underrepresented minorities are getting all the benefits through positive discrimination.TimeLine

    Speaking just for the US, yes, it is very different. I have my troubles with feminism, and even more with men's rights, so I don't want to get any further into the back and forth.
  • BC
    13.1k
    I am free to express my opinionMeta

    You are free insofar as you obey.
  • T Clark
    13k
    We know that females are evolutionarily programmed to attract males in order to reproduce (females choose one male). Males are programmed to reproduce with as many females as possible to diversify their gene pool. Humans and a lot of other species have this tendency.
    In today's society women use their arsenal to attract men. This arsenal consists of dressing or specific acts. The same can be told about men but while men are programmed to 'accept' every women; women usually will only accept a small % of the male population. This can lead to a lot of sexual frustration in society because a lot of males will be ignored meanwhile their senses excited by women. So as a member of the group of the ignored males I really need somebody to defend my rights as I get offended every time I see a beautiful seductive woman ignoring and despising me.
    Meta

    I didn't see your original post, so I can't judge whether or not it should have been deleted. My typical response to deletions is - "My God, it's Moose Turd Pie! - It's good though."

    As for this one, I'm nominating it for the @Baden/@Sapentia award for the creepiest post that didn't actually get removed.
  • Meta
    185
    I don't care about your opinion.
    The creepy thing is the so called culture of the US.
  • Agustino
    11.2k
    I am shocked that my post have been deleted. I will try to form my thoughts in a different way so nobody gets offended.
    We know that females are evolutionarily programmed to attract males in order to reproduce (females choose one male). Males are programmed to reproduce with as many females as possible to diversify their gene pool. Humans and a lot of other species have this tendency.
    In today's society women use their arsenal to attract men. This arsenal consists of dressing or specific acts. The same can be told about men but while men are programmed to 'accept' every women; women usually will only accept a small % of the male population. This can lead to a lot of sexual frustration in society because a lot of males will be ignored meanwhile their senses excited by women. So as a member of the group of the ignored males I really need somebody to defend my rights as I get offended every time I see a beautiful seductive woman ignoring and despising me.

    As I am free to express my opinion and I did not inted to offend anybody I ask you not to delete my post again.
    Meta
    The evolutionary game is designed for you to lose. Trying to play the game is like going to the casino and trying to beat the house. It's stupid, you never will. And that includes both men and women.

    There already are some "man's rights" groups, like MGTOW, but there's a lot of hatred of women and the like involved in those groups, much like in feminism there's often a lot of hatred of men. So I don't think such groups are good at all, except to point out that much like women have women-specific problems in the evolutionary game, so do men. These groups are stupid because they are inherently polarizing - they attempt to end violence by committing violence through the a priori expulsion of the other sex. They are just a continuation of the evolutionary game and it is precisely the evolutionary game that must be stopped.

    And you shouldn't feel on the short end of the stick, even the "successful" men in the evolutionary game are losers. They too lose the females they sometimes get, so what's the point? Only a loser plays a game where loss is certain, even for the so called "winners". You think you'll be any better if you have sex with that beautiful girl and tomorrow she rejects you? Probably you'll be even more miserable.

    So go look for people who aren't playing the evolutionary game anymore. You know, people who have higher values and a deeper understanding of reality. And before that, stop playing the evolutionary game yourself. This talk of males have evolved to, etc. is stupid. Human sexuality is 99% social and cultural. There are no set rules, you create the rules by the people and cultures you associate yourself with. The findings of those studies merely reflect the cultural and social attitudes of the societies in which they are undertaken, and these results are mistaken to be biological as opposed to cultural and social.

    I am a Christian. In the group of serious Christians sexuality isn't such a big deal. Things are quite simple, no sex before marriage, and once you get married there is mutual care and fidelity between the partners, including sex and physical intimacy until death. We're more concerned with other things such as spreading the Gospel message, making the world a better place and so on so forth. Sex plays a relatively minor role in the good life.
  • Ciceronianus
    2.9k
    Well, in the late 1990's I learned from that aforementioned book that apparently in some jurisdictions the way that the law is written a woman can give birth to and raise a child without ever telling the biological father, and then sue him retroactively for child support payments. That is just one example of bad things that hurt men--and more importantly, children--and treat them as less than equal that in twenty years I have never heard again, let alone from anywhere inside women's liberation, and that I probably never would have heard about if nobody decided that there are men's rights issues that need attention.WISDOMfromPO-MO

    I'm not sure what it is you find offensive here. Do you feel a father should not be responsible for child support unless he knows he has a child? Do you think that if a mother doesn't tell a father there is a child, the child isn't entitled to support from his/her father?
  • T Clark
    13k
    I am a Christian. In the group of serious Christians sexuality isn't such a big deal. Things are quite simple, no sex before marriage, and once you get married there is mutual care and fidelity between the partners, including sex and physical intimacy until death. We're more concerned with other things such as spreading the Gospel message, making the world a better place and so on so forth. Sex plays a relatively minor role in the good life.Agustino

    A very humane and well-expressed post.
  • T Clark
    13k
    I don't care about your opinion.
    The creepy thing is the so called culture of the US.
    Meta

    Perhaps you are not aware of how insulting and degrading your words are.
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