• VagabondSpectre
    1.9k
    This is all aided and abetted by the assumption that men and women are radically different needs, and have radically different needs.Bitter Crank

    Radically different, in some ways and in some cases, sure, but in a lot of ways our differences amount to nothing important.

    Just how different men and women really are though seems to be an uncomfortable truth to someone seeking to bestow all the boons of manhood onto the female population...
  • VagabondSpectre
    1.9k
    Totally. But I think there are more than a handful of issues which men need to talk about -- for their own good, the good of women, and society as a whole.Bitter Crank

    I'm not trying to downplay the importance of any individual issue, and maybe in some ways, a movement of a certain size ought to take place to address them, but I'd prefer conversations and smaller movements take place for each individual issue rather than ham-fisting them all into one sloppy emotional package like the usual movements of late.

    I just want to get the public and myself closer to actually comprehending the issues so that we have even a chance of solving them.
  • WISDOMfromPO-MO
    753
    Here is an actual case:

    "DeCrow raised eyebrows in 1981 when she served as defense counsel to Frank Serpico, the former New York detective and whistleblower, in a paternity suit. Serpico claimed the plaintiff had used him as a “sperm bank” and lied about being on the Pill while knowingly trying to conceive, and asserted that he had a constitutional right not to become a parent against his will. (The family-court judge, a woman, ruled in Serpico’s favor, but he lost on appeal.)

    DeCrow, by then a lawyer in private practice in Syracuse, New York, endorsed Serpico’s argument on feminist grounds. “Just as the Supreme Court has said that women have the right to choose whether or not to be parents, men should also have that right,” she told The New York Times, calling this “the only logical feminist position to take...”
    Source: The Feminist Leader Who Became a Men's-Rights Activist.
  • WISDOMfromPO-MO
    753
    "However, just as court-ordered child support does not make sense when a woman goes to a sperm bank and obtains sperm from a donor who has not agreed to father the resulting child, it does not make sense when a woman is impregnated (accidentally or possibly by her choice) from sex with a partner who has not agreed to father a child with her. In consenting to sex, neither a man nor a woman gives consent to become a parent, just as in consenting to any activity, one does not consent to yield to all the accidental outcomes that might flow from that activity..." Source: Is Forced Fatherhood Fair?.
  • bensbyk325
    2
    Hi, I'm conducting some research looking into Men’s Perceptions of Male Victims of Female Rape and thought this is a good forum to approach.

    If you have 10 mins and are willing to help a Good Cause then please do this anonymous online survey.

    https://bathpsychology.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_ekr29EDKxrwZNkN
  • adhomienem
    15
    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.
    WISDOMfromPO-MO

    Such blatant straw men are unnecessary. There are outliers to almost every group, and feminist philosophy is no exception. So I have no interest in defending the views of anyone who makes the sweeping generalizations you claim all feminists make--that all power and all benefits go to the men, and there are no benefits for women. I therefore won't accept your hypothetical in the first place because I, as a member of this "orthodoxy," don't think women's liberation covers all oppression ever in the entire world. To say otherwise is a straw man that deviates greatly from the mainstream view.

    Now let's breakdown the content of your main argument that men also need activism to gain equality:
    1. If there is oppression against men, then feminism is wrong.
    2. If a woman has a child without the father's knowledge, he did not have an opinion regarding the existence of that child.
    3. If he did not have an opinion regarding the existence of his child, then he cannot be fiscally responsible for the child.
    4. If the woman then demands the father is fiscally responsible, he is oppressed.
    5. At least once, a woman has had a child without the father's knowledge, and she has demanded that the father is fiscally responsible.
    6. Therefore this is oppression against men.
    7. Therefore, feminism is wrong.

    I want to deny the third premise of your argument. Why does the man need to have an opinion regarding the existence of the child in order to be fiscally responsible for the child? The creation of a child is not 50/50 man/woman, and therefore their opinions over the child's existence does not carry equal weight. For a man to do his part to create a child takes, let's say, 15 minutes. For a women to do her part to create a child takes 9 months. The ratio of 15 minutes to 9 months is 1/25000. So the man's opinion regarding the child's existence carries 1/25000th the weight that the woman's opinion carries--this is just a fact of biology.

    So far, all I've established is that sex has consequences. For men, the consequence is 15 minutes = 18 years of fiscal responsibility. For women, the consequence is 15 minutes = 9 months of physical responsibility, then 18 years of fiscal, emotional, mental, and physical responsibility. Still seems like the woman is getting the short end of the stick out of these two options.

    I think the goal of your example, while unsuccessful, might have been to establish that women can coerce men into reproducing a child, which is true. Reproduction coercion is a feminist issue, and the mainstream "orthodoxy" is that all reproduction coercion is wrong--whether the man coerces the woman or the woman coerces the man. Any manipulation or deception taken to cause the existence of a child is clearly wrong because of the fact that both adults are responsible for the creation of the child. Deceiving someone into responsibility that they did not freely choose is wrong--and so feminism fights against this oppression (that both men and women are subjected to) in order to create equality between the sexes.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    So the man's opinion regarding the child's existence carries 1/25000th the weight that the woman's opinion carries--this is just a fact of biology.adhomienem

    Hahaha. That's not a fact of biology. It's fine to say that the relative time involvement from each, purely re the biological processes required, is a fact, but that implies nothing whatsoever about how much weight anyone's opinion has.
  • adhomienem
    15


    What is your basis then for determining the weight of each parent's opinion?
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k


    People simply go by whatever intuitively feels right to them. It's not a factual matter.
  • adhomienem
    15
    is that statement you just made a factual matter?
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k


    Yes. It's not a value assessment.
  • ssu
    7.9k
    Reading this thread comes to my mind the following thought: when will one specific hated and historically quite often persecuted minority be given the right to view itself as a victim and as a persecuted minority?

    Yes, there is that minority, who people openly and unashamedly attack with the most stereotypical prejudices and basically people are OK about it. Nobody gives a damn about the open hate speech against this minority.

    Above all, this minority is taught just to take it. All the bad mouthing. And many members of this minority try to hide the fact that they belong to this minority. That is actually something that people see as a good thing, that persons don't openly show that they belong to this minority, but hide it. To everything I have said I can give easily examples from history and from the present.

    Now you likely have already guessed what minority I'm talking about. Yes, the minority I'm talking about are the rich.

    No really. You could make the book that shows that rich people have been persecuted. Just think about all of the Communist revolutions that have literally gone after this class of people.
  • RegularGuy
    2.6k
    when will one specific hated and historically quite often persecuted minority be given the right to view itself as a victim and as a persecuted minority?ssu

    When they give up at least some of their hegemonic political power.
  • ssu
    7.9k
    When they give up at least some of their hegemonic political power.Noah Te Stroete
    There you go. Gotcha!

    And that's why WISDOMfromPO-MO so apologetically added to his (or her???) OP that " 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. "
  • ssu
    7.9k
    You made my point again.
  • RegularGuy
    2.6k
    Nobody feels sorry for the privileged. That’s just a fact of life.
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