Who had it worse in 1913, men or women? /r/MensRights discusses (np.reddit.com)
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162 ups - 74 downs = 88 votes
240 comments submitted at 14:07:54 on Apr 19, 2014 by le_narwhal_king
Who had it worse in 1913, men or women? /r/MensRights discusses (np.reddit.com)
SubredditDrama
162 ups - 74 downs = 88 votes
240 comments submitted at 14:07:54 on Apr 19, 2014 by le_narwhal_king
Men were the ones who died in wars back then because of the patriarchy. I don't get why mras can't wrap their tiny brains around that. Women weren't allowed to fight even if they wanted to, and men were the ones declaring war. Jesus Christ I hate /r/mensrights
That's the biggest issue with most Mens Rights arguments.
They look at the injustices that men do have to face and have faced, in daily lives. Instead of understanding the historical, social and biological context of all of these things, they instead simply turn around and blame it all on, what seems to be, a feminist conspiracy.
As you said, the reason why men went to war was because men considered themselves as being the only gender who was capable of fighting in a war.
In the same manner, the reason why male rape is saddly not brought to attention that much, is because a lot of people in our society simply cannot wrap their heads around the concept, that a man can be used against his will and abused sexually by a woman. It doesn't register to a lot of people that men do not always have to be the assertive and dominant party.... and that's the problem, many people expect men to be assertive and dominant.
I empathize with some issues they want to raise awareness about, the sexual assaults of men and boys being a big one. But so much energy is wasted on their hate of any woman who could even remotely be perceived as a feminist that they are blinded by the fact that common law largely written by men has been the source of so many of these issues. I mean, I hate to break it to you mensrights, that women's studies professor you hate is not the root of your problems.
Edit: Preemptively apologizing for how circlebrokey this got
Well, the rape of choir boys by various priests is a massive issue.
But, if i'm not mistaken, and please correct me if i'm wrong, but weren't there some rather cruel comments made by some very respected feminists saying male rape didn't matter?
I'm not trying to use that as ammo or anything, i'm interested if that ever happened, because it's still despicable and not what i imagine a feminist is supposed to be.
I dunno, reddit has made me feel very conflicted about many issues :P
EDIT: I really don't get why i got downvoted all of a sudden, it was honestly just a question.
Cruel comments by women or men of that nature should be denounced, absolutely. But these people are fringe academia, not the ones they should be going after
Yeah, that's the problem. They whoosh past the actual, workable issues and attack the fringe shit, simultaneously giving it traction via their attention, alienating people away from the MRM, and not make any tangible progress. It's sad. Just a bunch of little internet wannabe demagogues.
Thanks :)
> But, if i'm not mistaken, and please correct me if i'm wrong, but weren't there some rather cruel comments made by some very respected feminists saying male rape didn't matter?
Didn't MRA send a bunch of fake rape accusations to Occidental college?
We can keep this going around in circles.
The reality is that both sides of edgy college students who are so arrogant as to believe their beliefs are undeniably, uncompromisingly true.
Yeah, they did.
Frankly, I have looked for those feminists and haven't found anything worthwhile: even if they exists, I don't think they are representative of the movement. If someone does know of any "well respected feminists" who did this, I'm interested in knowing too.
> I mean, I hate to break it to you mensrights, that women's studies professor you hate is not the root of your problems.
The feminist movement actively campaigned for many of the things mensrights opposes. For example, family courts giving preference to mothers in custody disputes is a result of feminist lobbying. Funnily enough, feminists now blame the fact that family courts favor women on patriarchy. But historically, men were awarded custody automatically. I suppose the patriarchy just works in mysterious ways.
> For example, family courts giving preference to mothers in custody disputes is a result of feminist lobbying.
You said that with such aplomb that I'm just sure there's a comprehensive, unbiased source waiting in the wings.
Because you used the word "aplomb"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenderyearsdoctrine
I'm not sure if this satisfies the "comprehensive" qualifier. The tender years doctrine does not explicitly exist any more - but it influenced the newer laws that give preference to the "primary caregiver" - and if you have seen the way that NOW opposes a rebuttable presumption of 50/50 custody, it's pretty obvious that feminists still support women getting preferential treatment in custody battles.
> I'm not sure if this satisfies the "comprehensive" qualifier.
I would say no, because I'm not convinced. I haven't looked at all the sources of that Wikipedia article, but having looked at this Berkeley Law website & a few others, I seem to have only found information regarding feminists opposing the automatic custody of fathers (interestingly, they also mention NOW opposing the Tender Years doctrine in the past, so I'd happily accept a source that they oppose 50/50 custody). Can you provide me a source referencing widespread feminist campaigning for the sole custody of the mother?
At this stage, though. I have to admit that you seem to be technically right. Without feminists originally opposing the automatic granting of custody to the father, the Tender Years doctrine couldn't have come about. Do you think it was a bad idea for them to oppose the presumption of sole custody of the father?
A couple branches of NOW have said they oppose the presumption of 50/50 custody because (a) it's harmful to children whose parents end up using them in their petty battles, (b) it would make it easier to game the child support system, and (c) it would make it more difficult for abused spouses and children to get away. They're not opposed to 50/50 custody when a judge actually sits down and looks at the evidence, coming to a 50/50 ruling independent of presumptions.
> so I'd happily accept a source that they oppose 50/50 custody
http://www.now.org/nnt/03-97/father.html
You will complain that this link is too old. I will try and get you some newer links if need be.
> Can you provide me a source referencing widespread feminist campaigning for the sole custody of the mother?
You love qualifiers. I cannot provide a source that there is a widespread feminist campaign to grant mothers sole custody - because there isn't. But I never claimed that there was. I claimed that feminists support preferential treatment of women in family courts.
> Do you think it was a bad idea for them to oppose the presumption of sole custody of the father?
No. But I think there should be a rebuttable presumption of 50/50 custody - which is something feminists tend to oppose.
The tender years doctrine was replaced by "the best interests of the child." But the best interests of the child still gives a lot of weight to the "primary caregiver."
> http://www.now.org/nnt/03-97/father.html
Oh, you're right. I misunderstood what 50/50 custody meant. I thought it meant that a court should not favour one gender over the other in custody battles, but you're using it to mean joint custody, right? In the latter case, /u/DemonicBtch gives a pretty good run-down of their reasons for opposing joint custody as a default. What is your opinion on them?
> You love qualifiers.
I feel their necessary. If I hadn't said widespread, you might've just linked to the statements of just one author & then we wouldn't have gotten anywhere.
> I cannot provide a source that there is a widespread feminist campaign to grant mothers sole custody - because there isn't. But I never claimed that there was.
Yeah, you're right. Sorry. Can you provide evidence of
> that feminists support preferential treatment of women in family courts.
--
> But the best interests of the child still gives a lot of weight to the "primary caregiver."
Can't the primary caregiver be either the mother or the father?
> Can't the primary caregiver be either the mother or the father?
Yes. But the most typical arrangement is the father as the primary breadwinner, and the mother as the primary caregiver.
And feminists support preferential treatment of women by supporting the primary caregiver standard. If more women become primary breadwinners, you will see the situation change completely.
When people, like men's rights activists argue for a default presumption of joint custody, feminists fight against it.
> gives a pretty good run-down of their reasons for opposing joint custody as a default. What is your opinion on them?
To her argument that petty parents will use the presumptive rule to manipulate the other parent - that is possible in any system. The system that gives the primary caregiver more control allows manipulative and petty people in the primary caregiver role the ability to manipulate the other parent to a much greater extent than a default 50/50 presumption would give to either parent.
To her argument that it would make it easier to "game" the child support system - I would support abolishing child support altogether and just have each parent financially responsible for the time they are with the child (if the arrangement is 50/50 custody). So, each parent gets 1/2 of the physical custody, and is financially responsible for their time with the kid during that 1/2.
To her argument that it would make it harder for abused spouses to get away - what if the abuser is the primary caregiver? It strikes me that demonicbtch assumes a male abuser, female victim default. Think about how tough it is for an abused husband to escape an abusive wife and to protect his children from her with a system that is completely set up to assume that he is the abusive one. Anyway, the presumption of 50/50 custody would be rebuttable. And one of the things you could rebut it with is the unfitness of one of the parents.
Ok, I'll reply in two parts:
Regarding the tender year doctrines - some history (tl:dr bellow):
"In Roman law, children were viewed as the property of their father, who had the absolute power to sell his children and enter them into enforced labor. Mothers had no legal rights with respect to their children, even as guardians in the event of the father's death. In later English common law, fathers continued to have near absolute powers, and the legal obligation to protect, support, and educate their children. Thus, in divorce, until the mid-nineteenth century, fathers had a right to custody as well, regardless of circumstances, and mothers had very restricted access to their children after divorce. A landmark change was initiated with the British Act of 1839, which directed the courts to award custody of children under the age of seven to mothers, and to award visiting rights to mothers for children seven years and older. This "tender years" doctrine advanced by the English lawyer and author Justice Thomas Noon Talfourd, though intended to determine custody only until the children were old enough to be returned to the father's custody, provided the first major challenge to the paternal presumption. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, America had a patriarchal legal system, and upon divorce the paternal preference was applied to divorce custody cases. However, by the nineteenth century, the paternal preference was not as strictly applied as in English law. While many states adopted statutes modeled on the Talfourd Act, several states radically departed from English common law by enacting laws giving both parents equal rights to custody of the children. Several major historical trends also converged to weaken the paternal presumption in the late 1800s, including society's increasing concern for children's welfare and the effects of the industrial revolution. As fathers sought work beyond the farm or village, mothers remained at home as primary caretakers of children. The resultant division of family responsibilities into wage earner and child nurturer influenced subsequent custody decisions. In addition, according to Mason, the movement toward a maternal preference was accompanied by an increase in the legal status of women in the United States during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The paternal preference was gradually replaced by a maternal preference, and by the 1920s, the maternal preference in custody determinations became as firmly fixed as the earlier paternal preference, both in statutes and in judicial decision making.
[...]
Several major historical trends converged to weaken this paternal presumption in the late 1800's, The pioneering feminists of the nineteenth century fought hard to establish custody rights for mothers in the face of a common law tradition that gave fathers paramount rights of custody and control. At the very first women's rights gathering 1948 Early feminists struggled to turn the law away from seeing children as the property of their fathers and more toward considering the needs of children. The traditional view of children as helping hands in a labor scarce economy slowly gave way to a romantic, emotional view of children; they were no longer legally akin to property under the complete control of their fathers, but were finally acknowledged to have interests of their own. Their interests increasingly became identified with the nurturing mother. By the beginning of the twentieth century most judges concurred with this radical new view of the importance of maternal nurture for children of tender years. The condition of children was greatly advanced as their right to nurture was placed above their fathers' right to their labor.
http://futureofchildren.org/publications/journals/article/index.xml?journalid=63&articleid=414§ionid=2825
Works cited:
Roth, A. The tender years presumption in child custody disputes. Journal of Family Law(1976-77) 15:423–61.See 2 and 3 Victoria, 1839.
The British Act of 1839 amended the law relating to the custody of infants. Mason, M.A.
From father's property to children's rights: The history of child custody in the United States. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.
Mnookin, R.H. Child custody adjudication: Judicial functions in the face of indeterminacy. Law and Contemporary Problems (1975) 39:226–93.
Freud, S. An outline of psychoanalysis. New York: W.W. Norton, 1949, p. 90.
http://www.law.berkeley.edu/3158.htm
By the 1950s in Michigan and all other states it was the law. The rule of maternal presumption reflected a universally held belief in the early part of this century that mothers by nature were the more nurturing parent for very young children. In their drive for equal rights in the seventies, many feminists spurned this very assumption, believing it fixed women as second-class citizens in a patriarchal structure.
[...]
The colonial view of children as helping hands in a labor-scarce economy gave way to a romantic, emotional view of children who were no longer legally akin to servants under the complete control of their fathers or masters but instead were deemed to have interests of their own. Increasingly, these interests became identified with the nurturing mother. Judges continued to be torn between applying common law rights of the father and the more modern rule of the bestinterest of the child. Eventually, however, the trend favored children. The best interests of the child, particularly for very young or female children, became increasingly associated with the child's mother. This tendency of courts to award infants and young children to their mothers later became known as the tender years doctrine
http://www.faqs.org/childhood/Co-Fa/Divorce-and-Custody.html
Feminism and Family Law, by Katharine T. Bartlett
>The same (optimistic some would say) impulse that led feminists to disfavor alimony as a solution to women's economic vulnerability at divorce also made them uncomfortable with the custody presumptions that favored mothers over fathers at divorce [32]. Children were viewed for some time as the natural property of their fathers, but between the mid-nineteenth century until the 1970's, mothers in virtually all jurisdictions were favored in custody cases, either through formal statutory presumptions or judicial convention [33]. As other sex-based classifications fell to the equal rights campaign of the 1970s and 1980s, the explicit partiality of these presumptions and conventions came to seem untenable. A few feminists advocates briefly flirted with the possibility of joint custody as gender-neutral solution that would encourage equal parenting roles [34] but most feminist advocates from the beginning of this period favored some version or another of the primary caretaker presumption [35]. Neither type of presumption caught on, and most states continue to operate with the best-interests of the child test in custody cases [36]. The upshot is the almost complete elimination of statutory presumptions in favor of mothers, without a substitute standard to control bias against them [37].
32 - Mary Ann Mason, From father's property to children's rights, 124-26
33 id., 123
34 - Katharien Bartlett: Joint custody, feminism and the dependency dilemma
35 - Martha Fineman: Dominant Discourse, professional language and legal change in child custody decisionmaking; Laura Sack: Women and children first - a feminist analysis of the primary caretaker standard in child custody cases
36 Most states provide some criteria for determining what is in the best interests of the child, and in some cases, the prior level of caretaking is a factor. Wash. Rev. Code Ann. 26.09.187(3)(a)(i) ("greatest weight" should be given to relative strength, nature, and stability of the child's relationship with each parent, including whether a parent has taken greater responsibility for performing caretaking functions relating to the daily needs of the child")
37 - There are 2 significant exceptions. First, in a few jurisdictions the law can be interpreted to permit sex matching, between mothers and daughters, or fathers and sons. Most courts decline to give a preference to same-sex parents. See Seeley v. Jaramillo, 727 P.2d 91, 95 (N.M. 1986); Synakowski v Synakowski , 594 N.Y.S.2d 852, 853, 1993. Second, in some jurisdictions mothers of out of wedlock children still have a custodial preference (Arkansas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Michigan cases).
In short:
there was, for a good while, a presumption that fathers should receive custody - mainly motivated by using children as labor force;
this started to change towards a presumption that mothers should receive custody - in synch with the view that mothers should be caregivers (instead of enjoying equal social and professional status with men)
the maternal custody presumption was challenged by feminists, on the grounds that it promoted harmful gender roles.
Your damning evidence of family courts being biased towards women is a legal principle that hasn't been utilized in decades?
The "best interests of the child" standard that replaced the Tender Years Doctrine gives a lot of weight to the "primary caregiver."
Currently, father's rights groups campaign for default 50/50 custody. Feminist groups oppose them.
I explained all that in the post you are responding to.
The law is fair. The social environment is not. We need to work on social and economic issues that pressure fathers into giving all our most of the responsibility for children to the mothers.
> We need to work on social and economic issues that pressure fathers into giving all our most of the responsibility for children to the mothers.
Hey. Maybe one of the ways we can do that is by abolishing the primary caregiver standard? Let's start with that.
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So the system rewards whoever has spent the most time with the child, and attempts to secure a stable environment by maintaining that arrangement?
Outrageous! People should be able to completely ignore their parental duties, and then just be automatically be granted 50/50 custody in the the event of a divorce.
The primary caregiver isn't the woman by default you know. It just so happens that women are the ones expected to sacrifice their career for their children. Kinda sounds like something that might happen in a patriarchy!
I do agree with giving preferential treatment to primary caregivers, but I don't think it's fair to say that fathers who aren't primary caregivers are just ignoring their parental responsibilities. It's not as simple as all that. We have an entire society that tells us that women are mothers and men are breadwinners, and that manifests in all kinds of ways that strongly influence individual families, whether they want it to or not.
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> So the system rewards whoever has spent the most time with the child, and attempts to secure a stable environment by maintaining that arrangement?
The system as it is set up seeks to preserve the benefits of marriage for the wife. The husband loses the benefits of marriage, but keeps the responsibilities.
> It just so happens that women are the ones expected to sacrifice their career for their children.
And men are expected to sacrifice themselves to be the bread winner.
Does any man on his death bed say "If only I had spent more time at work, and less with my family." No. Of course not. I have never been able to understand how feminist-minded people don't see that most men would rather be at home with their family than at work and that being expected to be financially responsible for multiple people is not all sunshine and rainbows.
> Kinda sounds like something that might happen in a patriarchy!
How? Why would patriarchy - a system supposedly set up by men for men, work in a way that is negative towards men and beneficial toward women?
When men were awarded default custody, was that patriarchy too?
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Regarding the legal presumption of forced joint custody, and why it hurts the interest of the child AND of the vulnerable parent:
>How the Joint Physical Custody Presumption (JPC) Works
>The joint physical custody presumption is a legal short-cut. It presupposes that joint physical custody is in the best interest of the child.15 Unlike most presumptions, which spring into effect only after a predicate fact has been established, the JPC presumption begins at the end: it starts with the legal conclusion that JPC is in the best interest of the child.16 As discussed below, the scientific research does not support this conclusion.17 Herein lies the legal peril: the JPC presumption universally applies a legal “conclusion” that is not universally true. It mandates a finding that JPC is in the best interest of the child, even though the research shows that the exact opposite is often true.18
>The JPC presumption is generally rebuttable. That means that the legal conclusion that JPC is in the best interest of the child may be challenged through the introduction of contrary evidence. If no contrary evidence is introduced, the legal conclusion stands. 19 In other words, joint physical custody will be deemed to be in the best interest of the child unless the parent who has reason to doubt that conclusion proves otherwise. This places a substantial evidentiary burden on the party who believes that joint physical custody is not good for the child. 20
>Operationally, the JPC presumption means that physical custody will be shared by the parents, without regard to the safety and well-being of the child, unless the parent seeking to avoid the arrangement can produce enough evidence to rebut the presumption. The danger of the JPC presumption is that, unless affirmatively challenged, the court is required to order joint physical custody regardless of whether that arrangement is actually in the best interest of the child or meets the specific needs of the dissolving family. In other words, joint physical custody will be ordered even if, in reality, it is bad for the child. Justice White recognized the peril of custody presumptions in Stanley v. Illinois where he observed:
>>Procedure by presumption is always cheaper and easier…than individualized determination. But when…the procedure forecloses the determinative issues of competence and care, when it explicitly disdains present realities in deference to past formalities, it needlessly risks running roughshod over the important interests of both parent and child.21
>As appealing as the JPC presumption may seem on the surface, it is a poor mechanism for decision-making in child custody cases.22 Without a JPC presumption, courts must consider the actual best interests of the child in fashioning appropriate custody awards. With a JPC presumption, courts do not have to think about the child at all, unless one of the parents has the wherewithal to mount a formal legal challenge.23
The sources for the above citations can be found here - http://www.bwjp.org/files/bwjp/articles/DangersofPresumptiveJointPhysical_Custody.pdf Nobody argues that JPC can't be realistic in various cases, and with good consequences - but it is wrong to always presume this, there are cases where applying this a priori is harmful, even when the presumption is rebuttable, as pointed out above.
This was fucking excellent. Well done.
I want to make small addition of my own to debunking the myth of significant bias in custody cases: > We began our investigation of child custody aware of a common perception that there is a bias in favor of women in these decisions. Our research contradicted this perception. Although mothers more frequently get primary physical custody of children following divorce, this practice does not reflect bias but rather the agreement of the parties and the fact that, in most families, mothers have been the primary [*748] caretakers of children. Fathers who actively seek custody obtain either primary or joint physical custody over 70% of the time. Reports indicate, however, that in some cases perceptions of gender bias may discourage fathers from seeking custody and stereotypes about fathers may sometimes affect case outcomes. In general, our evidence suggests that the courts hold higher standards for mothers than fathers in custody determinations.
wrekd
Yeah in the 1910s they campaigned for women to be allowed to keep their child when they divorced from their abusive husbands. The standard they pushed is equal custody (except in the case of abuse). The reason most children end up with the mother is usually because the father leaves and doesn't try to be involved in their lives. When fathers attempt to get custody they almost always get 50%.
>For example, family courts giving preference to mothers in custody disputes is a result of feminist lobbying.
No, it's not. Tender years doctrines were put into place in the late 1800s, long before the feminist movement started gaining momentum. It was put into place because it was widely believed that a woman's primary purpose is to be a mother, though the law only ever applied to very young children. Older kids still continued to go to the father. Tender Years laws began to be overturned in the 60s and 70s, which just so happens to also be the decades where feminism was becoming mainstream.
>Funnily enough, feminists now blame the fact that family courts favor women on patriarchy.
Yup, because they were laws created entirely by men during a time before women were even allowed to vote.
>But historically, men were awarded custody automatically. I suppose the patriarchy just works in mysterious ways.
Yeah, before the tender years doctrine. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth-centuries. Hundreds of years ago. And the main reason they did is because it was all but impossible for a woman to ever get a job that paid well enough to support herself and her children alone. Can you guess why?
> Yup, because they were laws created entirely by men during a time before women were even allowed to vote.
"In the early nineteenth century, Mrs. Caroline Norton, a prominent British society beauty, feminist, social reformer author, and journalist, began to campaign for the right of women to have custody of their children. Norton, who had undergone a divorce and been deprived of her children, worked with the politicians of those times and eventually was able to convince the British Parliament to enact legislation to protect mothers' rights."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenderyearsdoctrine
Just because laws were passed by men, doesn't mean they were passed for men.
So, because one woman who identified herself as a feminist advocated for the tender years doctrine two hundred hears ago, modern feminism of the last fifty years is directly responsible?
Two hundred years ago the democratic party were the socially conservative ones and republicans were the progressives. I guess we can assume that's still true today since what groups did 200 years ago is still relevant.
> So, because one woman who identified herself as a feminist advocated for the tender years doctrine two hundred hears ago, modern feminism of the last fifty years is directly responsible?
I was disputing your claim that the tender years doctrine came entirely from men and was based on the idea a "woman's primary purpose is to be a mother". Your claim was shown to be entirely false, so you shifted the goalposts.
Feminists today no longer support the tender years doctrine, but they support laws that are beneficial toward women in custody disputes like the primary caregiver standard. Feminists fight against a rebuttable presumption of 50/50 joint custody.
Same thing with higher jailtimes for men. Men are seen as the powerful gender, so of course they are seen as more dangerous.
Which is why black men get worse sentences than white men. Black men are seen as the powerful race.
Black men are not seen as more powerful, but definitely as more dangerous, because of racism. You unsoundly inverted an implication there(more powerful => more dangerous is not the same thing as more dangerous => more powerful).
An arab immigrant who is always "randomly checked" at airports is just oppressed, he has no more power in society than a white person.
No, you used an implication the wrong way round. It's not a privilege, it only comes from something that is mostly a privilege.
I believe "patriarchy" exists, but I do not believe it's as simple as "women are oppresed by men", since men get oppressed sometimes by it too(like here), and men don't even perpetuate it much more than women. I can understand how the model is a bit counterintuitive at first, and it's an anomaly compared to other axes of oppression(racism for example is way more unidirectional), but IMO it's the one that best explains sexism.
I'm pointing out your fuzzy logic.
Black men receive harsher sentences than white men because of being seen as dangerous due to racism against black people.
Men receive harsher sentences than women because of being seen as dangerous due to sexism against....women.
You literally reach the opposite conclusion that you did with black people.
No, my logic is pretty clear: you may agree with my premises or not, but given the premises, the conclusions follow consistently.
Power implies dangerousness, not the other way round, dangerousness is something negative, but power is mostly positive("mostly" because, as with exactly this example, it's a double edged sword). Black men are seen as dangerous for different reasons.
You are making oversimplifications to my argument that don't preserve the meaning and refuting those broken versions of my argument, not refuting my actual argument: what you did in this second comment is quite subtle, but the main part in your error saying that sexism is "against women": I don't believe it's as simple as that, as considering women to be less capable than men doesn't have only disadvantages.
>Power implies dangerousness, not the other way round, dangerousness is something negative, but power is mostly positive("mostly" because, as with exactly this example, it's a double edged sword). Black men are seen as dangerous for different reasons. My conclusions follow from the premises.
Which doesn't make sense since rich powerful men are the ones most likely to get away from serving jail time when they do something wrong.
>I don't believe it's as simple as that, as considering women to be less capable than men doesn't have only disadvantages.
One could easily say women are seen as more valuable than men, which is why we don't care if men die in wars, die in coal mines, or get sent off to jail.
> Which doesn't make sense since rich powerful men are the ones most likely to get away from serving jail time when they do something wrong.
I'm not talking about economic power, I'm talking about percieved capability. Of course rich people have privilege against poor people and that's not two-sided in any way. That doesn't even have to do anything with gender.
> One could easily say women are seen as more valuable than men, which is why we don't care if men die in wars, die in coal mines, or get sent off to jail.
That's not a bad approach either: I didn't say my reason was the only reason. But I don't think you can ignore the fact that women are seen as generally less capable to do these jobs or commit violent crimes. Also, "valuability" in this case isn't a pure privilege either, since it almost certainly means "valuability as a sex object", or at least implies treating them as goods rather than as people. This is for example the argument misogynist strains of muslim use to barely let women go out of their homes: they say that "women are like jewels and thus should be protected".
So yeah, that's also true, but you can't use it to say that men are oppressed and women aren't, just like you can't use my argument to say that women are oppressed and men aren't.
>I'm not talking about economic power, I'm talking about percieved capability
My point was that the situation is more complex than power = danger. Most of the people in jail are the ones with the least power - the poor, the uneducated, the mentally ill. I can buy the idea that men are seen as more competent than women. They're also seen as more violent, as more perverse, and more immoral. Why should I consider any of that sexism against women?
>Also, "valuability" in this case isn't a pure privilege either, since it almost certainly means "valuability as a sex object", or at least implies treating them as goods rather than as people.
I don't agree. I don't think men are sacrificing their lives on the pure basis that they value women for sex. This only perpetuates harmful notions of men as some sex craved monsters. I think, believe it or not, that men genuinely care about their mothers, sisters, daughters, and wives. They want to protect them and keep them safe.
>So yeah, that's also true, but you can't use it to say that men are oppressed and women aren't, just like you can't use my argument to say that women are oppressed and men aren't.
I think we aren't far off from holding the same beliefs. Your ideas seem to lay in the middle, like mine. I've never been of the mind that men have it bad, women have it good. I think both sides had their advantages and disadvantages. Historically, before medical and technological advancements, life was really difficult. Survival, not life fulfillment, was the primary concern of the average person. So while certain roles may have been unfair, people did what they had to do to ensure they saw tomorrow.
Hang around Reddit thread during a conversation on gendered sports and watch how gleefully the people here talk about how much physically stronger men are, how boring women's sporting is because they're not as strong etc.
You really think the reason men get sent to war and forced into physically dangerous jobs is because we value women?
>You really think the reason men get sent to war and forced into physically dangerous jobs is because we value women?
I certainly think that's part of the reason. Otherwise, if women were these inferior beings, we could simply have had them on the front line serving as human shields - much like they did with black men. This wouldn't have taken any skill.
The prejudice against black people states that they are violent and unruly, ergo more dangerous.
The stereotype against women is that they are weak and stupid, therefore less dangerous.
I'm not sure how that's hard to understand.
The stereotype that black people are violent and unruly is prejudice against black people.
The stereotype that men are violent and unruly is prejudice against women...somehow. Okay.
No, what I'm saying is that, when considering sentences, a sexist judge or jury might decide that a woman is less dangerous because of their stereotype, and therefore sentence her to less time than an equivalent male criminal. (That's called benevolent sexism, and, yes, it's a problem.) On the other hand, a racist judge or jury would sentence a black person to more time, since their stereotype of them is that they're more dangerous.
Men are more likely to be seen as bad people deserving of punishment. Women are more likely to be seen as good people deserving of second chances. The bad men are not seen as productive members of society. The bad women are.
You're ignoring blatant sexism against men here.
And men were the ones who put themselves in that assertive and dominant role in the first place.
It looks like they're blaming feminists for ignoring the plight of men throughout history, not for causing the plight of men.
That happens, yes, but man some MRA's go the extra mile and blame feminists and only for these problems.
[deleted]
Are you trying to imply there isn't a gender issue to be found in these issues?
And no, i have a pretty nuanced grasp on MRA's. I don't think all of them are sexist pigs who only scream at feminists, but damn man, it can barely be called an activist movement.
When? Where?
MRAs blame "traditional gender roles" that were enforced by both men and women. So, MRAs do put part of the blame on women, but they don't blame feminism. They just blame feminism for ignoring half of history.
> When? Where?
/r/MensRights
Since it is so obvious, digging up a few specific examples shouldn't be too hard, right?
http://np.reddit.com/r/MensRights/search?q=feminism&restrict_sr=on&sort=relevance&t=all
like lmgtfy but more specific
Certain MRA's, not every single one. Forgot to add that distinction, but i see it happen often. You can't deny it doesn't.
And i kind of have to say, traditional gender roles were enforced by men and women, of course, but usually men enforced them onto other men and women enforced it on to other women.
> You can't deny it doesn't.
Yes, I can. And I did.
> but usually men enforced them onto other men and women enforced it on to other women.
I wouldn't say that. I think there was a lot of pressure, and still is, going in every direction.
Even today. Look at how often feminist groups use "real men don't X"
> Yes, I can. And I did.
Very mature.
> Look at how often feminist groups use "real men don't X"
Look at how often men act like this. Again, you're making the ame mistake you're denying other MRA's make.... you're blaming feminists as the biggest instigators and culprits of the injustices that men have to face, when in fact, men and women, without regards towards any movement, act like this because they were conditioned by society. You're ignoring all the contexts i mentioned that many MRA's ignore.
And what you're ignoring is that these are the standards that were inculcated to men by other men. Yes, pressure comes from both genders. Many old women are so ingrained in this though that they can't see anything besides it... it's been inculcated into them as well, which makes arguing about "it's all the feminists fault" POINTLESS.
Because as we can see it's more complex than what you make it out to be. And it doesn't help that historically, most civilisations were patriarchal.
> That's the biggest issue with most Mens Rights arguments. They look at the injustices that men do have to face and have faced, in daily lives. Instead of understanding the historical, social and biological context of all of these things, they instead simply turn around and blame it all on, what seems to be, a feminist conspiracy.
Isn't that also what feminists do though?
Oh yeah.... i should add that i don't think all MRA's are this way. So in the same way not all feminists think this. But really, both movements have fucked up sides to them.
Also, yay Last of the Mohican refference in your name :)
This means either they don't understand the meaning of patriarchy, or you don't understand the meaning of "patriarchy"
> Instead of understanding the historical, social and biological context of all of these things, they instead simply turn around and blame it all on, what seems to be, a feminist conspiracy [...] the reason why male rape is saddly [sic] not brought to attention that much, is because a lot of people in our society simply cannot wrap their heads around the concept, that a man can be used against his will
http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Womens-groups-Cancel-law-charging-women-with-rape
http://toysoldier.wordpress.com/2013/03/06/a-sad-day-for-male-rape-victims-in-india/
Don't you know that feminists started WWI and instituted the tyrannical white feather campaign to creepshame innocent males into joining the army. Every war in human history is due to feminism
You forgot to blame feminists for the fall of Rome...
Damn females, always voting and tumbling empires!
[deleted]
Digging a used condom out of his dumpster and shoving it up your vagina for that sweet child support money.
/#justwomenthings
Aren't you an MRA? ;)
To quote what I said the other day:
>It is my honest belief that there are progressive activists working on men's issues. It would take a considerable amount of ignorance on behalf of a feminist to deny that men don't face certain challenges of their own; once you recognize that, you must admit that those issues should be dealt with. What I am getting at is that I do support having a progressive movement to deal with men's issues. The sad thing is that the most notorious groups and personalities in this area seem to be quite regressive - and men do deserve better than that.
>I don't mind if people call me a supporter of men's issues (fact of the matter is, I welcome it, as it would be a further validation that I support equality of rights, which is a necessary component of being a feminist). It is unfortunate that the term "MRA" is now, by and large, the de facto term for supporters of men's issues, and that the term itself has become associated with anti-feminism, in general, and with many questionable actions and values, in particular.
I know d. I was teasing. You need to lighten up :p
WOMEN SUFFER IN WARS TOO! I can't believe they would think that during the wars (that men are responsible for because women had no political power) women had a jolly old time as a stay at home mom. Women were raped and killed all the time, even though they were civilians. If their husband dies in war, they often couldn't support themselves. Not because they are lazy and useless, but because their world is literally expected to revolve around a man.
Sorry, but it makes me so angry that these whiny men would claim men (as a group) were somehow oppressed during this time period, or really any time period.
Personally if I had the choice of not being able to support myself because I was a woman or not being able to support myself because I went blind in a gas attack, I had a limb blown off in an explosion, or because I was psychologically broken due to what I saw and experienced. I'd pick not being able to support myself because I was a woman any day of the week. It's not even close to being a hard decision.
Honestly, Hillary really nailed it when she said: >Women have always been the primary victims of war. Women lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat. Women often have to flee from the only homes they have ever known. Women are often the refugees from conflict and sometimes, more frequently in today’s warfare, victims.
It's funny how these manchildren like to cite this quote as though it's supposed to discredit Hillary, rather than try to understand what she meant. In a very real sense women were the biggest victims of wars throughout history. They had no power in controlling when such conflicts broke out, no ability to control their course, but suffered all the worst consequences from losing their relatives to losing their livelihood and then attempting to survive in a patriarchicial society where they were actively discouraged from seeking out a way to make a living for themselves and possibly their families.
No sane person would deny that woman have been victims and sufferers of war, but no sane person would suggest that
> Women have always been the primary victims of war
either. And no, its not woman vs. the patriarchy, its the powerful and rich vs the powerless and poor. Making this argument a pure gender issue is beyond silly.
When the rich wage war it's the poor who die.
Yes let's just completely ignore the son who just lost his father, the brother who just lost his brother, and the father who lost his son, let alone the person who actually died, the person who came back maimed, the person who came back with severe PTSD or other mental problems all because of a conflict they couldn't control either. And about those refugees, would you rather be forced from your home or turned into a child solider?
All of those things pale in comparison to having a man hold the door open for you.
Of course. Not the people who were sent off to war that they didn't want to fight. Women are the REAL victims, here.
You're trying really hard not to get it aren't you. We are not talking about individuals here but about groups. Throughout most of history, women were by default excluded from the right to play any direct role in the political system they lived under and consequently had an extremely constrained ability to control their own fates. This doesn't change the fact that individual men may have had ill luck as well just as individual women have, however that's a different issue altogether.
When scholars talk about the oppression of women, they refer to women as a class and to the institutional barriers they were subjected to as a class. This is why MRA's sound like such silly whiny losers when they try to frame men as the real oppressed gender.
>Throughout most of history, women were by default excluded from the right to play any direct role in the political system they lived under and consequently had an extremely constrained ability to control their own fates.
you are correct.
the same goes for most men troughout history too.
how many of the men on the battlefield do you honestly think had any say in starting the wars they were in?
> We are not talking about individuals here but about groups.
then we are not talking about the people who started any wars in the history of mankind really.
I honestly don't know what pisses me off more. The fact that Hilary said it or that people actually believe it.
If not being able to go over the top and get killed by a barrage of bullets is oppression, then throw my ass into the kitchen and let me make some sandwiches.
>Sorry, but it makes me so angry that these whiny men would claim men (as a group) were somehow oppressed during this time period, or really any time period.
Oh for the love of...
>Mustard gas wasn't really all that bad guyz! forreals! It only melts your lungs! Who needs those? ¯\(ツ)/¯
>>Being shot in the back of the head by a commissar because you were afraid of dying after watching the boys ahead of you literally explode into mincemeat was totes not that bad, either. If they weren't such inept soldiers, they probably would have had a chance in that suicide mission.
>>>Aren't in a country that conscripts? Not in the war? Selfish bastard! Boycotting businesses because their owner/employees didn't sign up to sit in a cold wet trench until they die of hypothermia was nbd. Don't want to die for your country? Get out, scum.
>>>>PTSD? Phht, that wasn't even a thing until the 70's, ya dingus. The psychiatric effects of grueling training, conditions, and combat were way different during WWI than in Vietnam. There's more than one way to kill all of your friends! Anyone who was hurt emotionally in Europe, Africa, the Pacific, and Korea must have just been weak willed.
>>>>>Hmm, some people are starting to not like this whole, conscription thing. And it's getting pretty hard to use political clout to protect our offspring... What should we do?
>>>>>Well, we could give educational exemptions for college students at certain universities!
>>>>>Great! People will think we are giving leeway, when in reality it is already prohibitively expensive to attend university! It gives us a legitimate avenue to protect our, the glorious oligarchs', sons from the horrors of war! Brilliant!
Give me a fucking break.
Regular men and boys are oppressed, just in different ways.
Until relatively recently... Common women didn't have the right to make major decisions, vote, and own many things. Basically the right to autonomy.
Until relatively recently... Common men (and in many cases, boys) didn't (some still don't, in varying degrees) have the right to abstain from combat. Boys and men were obligated to fight and die to resolve the disagreements and squabbles of the elite... With what might as well have been nothing in return.
>Men were the ones who died in wars back then because of the patriarchy.
So patriarchy gave men privilege by forcing them to die?
>Women weren't allowed to fight even if they wanted to
Men weren't allowed to not fight even if they wanted to
>men were the ones declaring war
And feminists were the ones shaming men as cowards for not enlisting in the army. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitefeather#WorldWar_I
It seems like this is pretty great evidence that having men in power doesn't actually benefit men in general. The only people who have it better than the average woman/man are rich/powerful men/women.
Patriarchy isn't all men oppressing all women (at least according to mainstream feminist theory, you could probably find some fringe texts stating otherwise), it was some men oppressing all women and some men. At least if you were a man you had a chance to work your way into the ruling class.
[deleted]
You completely left out the nuance with the White Feather Movement and feminists:
> World War I was a rather divisive issue amongst feminists at the time. Half of Britian’s suffrage movement were in opposition to the war effort. As a prime example on the split between suffragettes over the Order (and support of the World War), Emmeline and Christabel might have been in support of the Order of White Feather, Emmeline’s other daughters Sylvia and Adela Pankhurst were pacifists and were against the World War, the former beliving that it was another example of “capitalist oligarchs exploiting poor soldiers and workers”, and the latter against the idea of conscription.
> In fact, the issue is a wee bit more complicated than that. Emmeline Pankhurst organized a Right to Serve March in 1915, fighting for women to be involved in war-related work such as working in the factories. However, there were other feminists who believed that women should simply stay in their own separate sphere, for they believed this is where women derived their power (start the clip from 9:39). As such, the movement was divided, both on whether women should even be supporting the war at all, and in what capacity should they be assisting in the war effort.
> A related issue to White Feather is whether the Order of White Feather was the same thing as conscription. The answer is a resounding no. The Order of White Feather was meant to shame men into voluntarily joining the Armed Forces. While conscription does later become put into law to get more men to serve during this time, this law was written by and passed by men in Parlament. Women had nothing to do with it, let alone feminists or suffragettes.
Source.
The last thing we need is more MRA's linked to /r/badhistory...
It happens rather often.
> you seem to have a pretty simplistic idea of the way things worked back then.
Says the kid who completely missed the point of the other poster. It's quite amazing you were even able to figure out how to quote with how their whole point went completely over your head.
>Men were the ones who died in wars back then because of the patriarchy.
There was no sort of secret cabal that decided to go to war to exclude women from fighting. Because one person could choose to go to war doesn't mean that the rest would have - you can't blame everyone for the choices of a few
> the patriarchy
the illuminati
I mean for fuck's sake this is why MRAs don't buy into your bullshit. The needless use of gendered words to assign blame for a phenomenon that by your own admission, disadvantages everyone involved. I don't care how "technically correct" the term may be w/r/t family structure, you're trying to win hearts and minds, and you don't do that by tacitly blaming the people you're trying to win over.
>the patriarchy
>the illuminati
Oh come on. Because as we all know, Patriarchy is actually a shadowy group of old men sitting in the dining room of some historic castle plotting out how to keep women down, and not a complex power structure that has manifested over several centuries of human history across numerous cultures.
It's no wonder the MRM is laughed out of universities across the world when this is what they actually believe.
Stop using it that way, then.
I've never used it that way. Come to think of it, I can't recall ever seeing anyone other than MRAs misinterpreting the idea of patriarchy as a secret society.
*Case in point right here. Another MRA who thinks that patriarchy = the illuminati.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/patri-
I'm shocked you don't understand how prefixes work, but then again I guess I'm not.
> how "technically correct" the term may be w/r/t family structure
looks you like can't read, bro!
Technically correct is still correct.
But thoroughly un-useful in this instance, which you can't grasp at all. You'd rather have your little technically-correct victory dance than actually try and bring people around to agreeing with you. Which is sad.
Well, in that case I'm sorry the word patriarchy offends you. But its still an apt description of what the world looked like during 1913. You being offended doesn't change that.
Again, technically correct, but not actually helpful in any way.
And I suppose petty internet fights are helping. Come on sp8der, if we go back and forth long enough we can change the world!
Or invent perpetual motion.
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> I don't get why mras can't wrap their tiny brains around that.
Well, as an MRA, I suddenly feel the overwhelming urge to throw away all of my Ideas and sublimate them into patriarchy blame. All it took was your facile oversimplifications and insults against my mental capacity to make me see how I was in error.
"Why don't these stupid, worthless assholes see how I really know what's good for them?"
"Why don't these stupid, worthless assholes see how I really know what's good for them?"
When someone is right they are right.
please someone think of the poor wimminz