9 ms·

Don't worry, you can find plenty of examples where society or medicine ignored the needs or voices of women. Combative narratives are suboptimal. They are alie

Don't worry, you can find plenty of examples where society or medicine ignored the needs or voices of women. Combative narratives are suboptimal. They are alienating to those you complain about, when obtaining their support would further your cause. It's possible, and more effective, to advance men's rights without complaining about women, or any other rights movement. Not everything has to be Us vs Them. I'd much rather live in a world where it isn't.

willcipriano 4y ago
[flagged]
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - willcipriano 4y ago
    Of course not they are perfect and without flaw. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women-are-wonderful_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women-are-wonderful_effect
    - dang 4y ago
      Please don't take HN threads further into ideological flamewar. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - giraffe_lady 4y ago
      [flagged]
      - dang 4y ago
        I don't know if this was an extreme case of ideological battle or trolling, but either way it's against the site guidelines, so please don't do it here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - mihaic 4y ago
    Not sure if you're being sarcastic, but I've personally seen plenty of peer-pressure from women to women, to enforce some conformity. Often it's the high status women that spend the most effort on enforcing established social norms that hurt most women.
    - willcipriano 4y ago
      I've been following this issue for decades and early on a lot of it was supposed to be around body image issues. It was claimed that men had these impossible beauty standards and womens issues were largely due to not living up to them. Then the internet became popular and it became possible to quantify the gender of people making these body shaming comments, turns out it's mostly other women. Online dating further proved that men are attracted to all sorts of women and while a specific man may have certain things he prefers, men in general are very forgiving, in fact it turns out women are the ones with impossible standards, they all chase after the same 1% of men. Then there was the wage gap stuff, it was popular for a while, and as that was looked into we found women make different choices at work, they take more sick days, go on more vacations and work less overtime, not to mention they tend to choose less demanding jobs in the first place. So now it's this undefinable and unfalsifiable "patriarchy", this new one doesn't really make specific claims but rest assured men are the source of all the worlds problems.
  - marcellus23 4y ago
    Case in point.
  - Der_Einzige 4y ago
    Enormous amounts of problems. My own wife says that she hates other women far more than she hates any man she knows...
- Conscat 4y ago
  [flagged]
seandoe 4y ago
I don't think parent's comment was combative at all. Simply, their opinion and/or observation. If you don't think we live in a time when men's (white especially) interests are being attacked you're delusional. They are at the bottom of the identity politics war. Ideas of toxic masculinity, undeserved privilege, power, etc. are being touted as gospel by the educated, political class. Maybe it's all deserved. Paying for generations of misbehavior or something. It doesn't really matter. The reality is that political popularity and public "good graces" _are_ a zero sum game. Politics are currently very much us vs them. And men are very much them right now.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  > If you don't think we live in a time when men's (white especially) interests are being attacked you're delusional. Nonsense. This is just a rhetorical technique to try to dismiss people who hold opinions that differ from yours without having to actually engage them.
  - seandoe 4y ago
    It's interesting that you claim my statement is nonsense. That seems hypocritically dismissive. Ask for evidence or simply disagree. By saying nonsense are you implying that it's not possible that men's interests could be discounted by the popular opinion of today? How about the amount of funding and attention that breast cancer gets vs prostate cancer? Once again I'm not interested in why, just the current state.
    - JohnFen 4y ago
      I think you misunderstood the part that I was calling "nonsense". It was the part where anyone who disagrees with you must be delusional. I wasn't commenting on your opinion about men one way or the other.
      - seandoe 4y ago
        ah ok, that's fair.
hungryforcodes 4y ago
This is a weird statement. His comment wasn't combatative at all, and additionally men have been very marginalized in anglophone societies (USA, UK, AUS, CAD, etc) in the past 20 years by the media (just look at those ads where the guy's only function in his family is to cook steak on the BBQs, while the woman brilliantly manages everything like a CEO :P ), while women have been celebrated. The original idea of all this when I first encountered it in the 90s was something called "equality". But it's been thrown out the window totally. Even if you don't agree with it, people are allowed to express how they feel. Passionate reactions (and this is hardly even passionate -- it's just a statement of this person's perception of the state of things), are ok. Sometimes even needed to spark discussion. He feels things aren't equal anymore -- and they aren't. Again in anglophone societies....
Manuel_D 4y ago
Combative narratives are unavoidable if another movement is pushing for something contradictory to your movement. Pro-choice movements are inevitably running into conflict with anti-abortion movements because their desires are directly contradictory. Likewise, a group seeking to eliminate gender discrimination is going to directly run up against a group advocating for gender quotas.
- snowwrestler 4y ago
  Pro-choice and anti-abortion movements are not necessarily contradictory, as there are many services and strategies that are proven to reduce abortions, aside from criminal penalties. For example, the broad and free availability of sex education and contraception greatly reduces accidental pregnancies, which are a leading cause of elective abortions. And genetic screenings and counseling can help women identify risk factors for inheritable developmental issues and decide whether to have children, or pursue alternatives like adoption.
  - Manuel_D 4y ago
    Sure, now ask them "should elective abortion be legal?" And then you'll immediately see the conflict between the two positions. The fact that they may both support contraception is whataboutism. The core objectives of the two groups are indeed directly contradictory.
    - snowwrestler 4y ago
      You missed the point, which is that there is a difference between the substance of an issue and the combative political campaigns set up around an issue. The substance is not binary; there is substantial overlap and gray areas. Most things are not zero-sum. But it’s beneficial politically to set up an “us vs them” mentality. So yes, you’re right that the people are in conflict. But the point is, much of that is artificial.
      - Manuel_D 4y ago
        The substances may overlap in some areas, but the defining goal of two groups are often directly contradictory. The goal of a group whose primary goal is to criminalize abortion is directly contradictory to a group that wants to make or keep abortion legal. The fact that they may both support contraceptives is missing the forest for the trees, the primary goals of the two groups are indeed directly contradictory. Achieving the goal of one necessarily means the other fails in their goal. There's nothing artificial about this.

willcipriano 4y ago

[flagged]

giraffe_lady 4y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- willcipriano 4y ago
  Of course not they are perfect and without flaw. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women-are-wonderful_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women-are-wonderful_effect
  - dang 4y ago
    Please don't take HN threads further into ideological flamewar. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- tablespoon 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - giraffe_lady 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - dang 4y ago
      I don't know if this was an extreme case of ideological battle or trolling, but either way it's against the site guidelines, so please don't do it here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- mihaic 4y ago
  Not sure if you're being sarcastic, but I've personally seen plenty of peer-pressure from women to women, to enforce some conformity. Often it's the high status women that spend the most effort on enforcing established social norms that hurt most women.
  - willcipriano 4y ago
    I've been following this issue for decades and early on a lot of it was supposed to be around body image issues. It was claimed that men had these impossible beauty standards and womens issues were largely due to not living up to them. Then the internet became popular and it became possible to quantify the gender of people making these body shaming comments, turns out it's mostly other women. Online dating further proved that men are attracted to all sorts of women and while a specific man may have certain things he prefers, men in general are very forgiving, in fact it turns out women are the ones with impossible standards, they all chase after the same 1% of men. Then there was the wage gap stuff, it was popular for a while, and as that was looked into we found women make different choices at work, they take more sick days, go on more vacations and work less overtime, not to mention they tend to choose less demanding jobs in the first place. So now it's this undefinable and unfalsifiable "patriarchy", this new one doesn't really make specific claims but rest assured men are the source of all the worlds problems.
- marcellus23 4y ago
  Case in point.
- Der_Einzige 4y ago
  Enormous amounts of problems. My own wife says that she hates other women far more than she hates any man she knows...
Conscat 4y ago
[flagged]

seandoe 4y ago

I don't think parent's comment was combative at all. Simply, their opinion and/or observation. If you don't think we live in a time when men's (white especially) interests are being attacked you're delusional. They are at the bottom of the identity politics war. Ideas of toxic masculinity, undeserved privilege, power, etc. are being touted as gospel by the educated, political class. Maybe it's all deserved. Paying for generations of misbehavior or something. It doesn't really matter. The reality is that political popularity and public "good graces" _are_ a zero sum game. Politics are currently very much us vs them. And men are very much them right now.

JohnFen 4y ago
> If you don't think we live in a time when men's (white especially) interests are being attacked you're delusional. Nonsense. This is just a rhetorical technique to try to dismiss people who hold opinions that differ from yours without having to actually engage them.
- seandoe 4y ago
  It's interesting that you claim my statement is nonsense. That seems hypocritically dismissive. Ask for evidence or simply disagree. By saying nonsense are you implying that it's not possible that men's interests could be discounted by the popular opinion of today? How about the amount of funding and attention that breast cancer gets vs prostate cancer? Once again I'm not interested in why, just the current state.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    I think you misunderstood the part that I was calling "nonsense". It was the part where anyone who disagrees with you must be delusional. I wasn't commenting on your opinion about men one way or the other.
    - seandoe 4y ago
      ah ok, that's fair.

hungryforcodes 4y ago

This is a weird statement. His comment wasn't combatative at all, and additionally men have been very marginalized in anglophone societies (USA, UK, AUS, CAD, etc) in the past 20 years by the media (just look at those ads where the guy's only function in his family is to cook steak on the BBQs, while the woman brilliantly manages everything like a CEO :P ), while women have been celebrated. The original idea of all this when I first encountered it in the 90s was something called "equality". But it's been thrown out the window totally. Even if you don't agree with it, people are allowed to express how they feel. Passionate reactions (and this is hardly even passionate -- it's just a statement of this person's perception of the state of things), are ok. Sometimes even needed to spark discussion. He feels things aren't equal anymore -- and they aren't. Again in anglophone societies....

Manuel_D 4y ago

Combative narratives are unavoidable if another movement is pushing for something contradictory to your movement. Pro-choice movements are inevitably running into conflict with anti-abortion movements because their desires are directly contradictory. Likewise, a group seeking to eliminate gender discrimination is going to directly run up against a group advocating for gender quotas.

snowwrestler 4y ago
Pro-choice and anti-abortion movements are not necessarily contradictory, as there are many services and strategies that are proven to reduce abortions, aside from criminal penalties. For example, the broad and free availability of sex education and contraception greatly reduces accidental pregnancies, which are a leading cause of elective abortions. And genetic screenings and counseling can help women identify risk factors for inheritable developmental issues and decide whether to have children, or pursue alternatives like adoption.
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  Sure, now ask them "should elective abortion be legal?" And then you'll immediately see the conflict between the two positions. The fact that they may both support contraception is whataboutism. The core objectives of the two groups are indeed directly contradictory.
  - snowwrestler 4y ago
    You missed the point, which is that there is a difference between the substance of an issue and the combative political campaigns set up around an issue. The substance is not binary; there is substantial overlap and gray areas. Most things are not zero-sum. But it’s beneficial politically to set up an “us vs them” mentality. So yes, you’re right that the people are in conflict. But the point is, much of that is artificial.
    - Manuel_D 4y ago
      The substances may overlap in some areas, but the defining goal of two groups are often directly contradictory. The goal of a group whose primary goal is to criminalize abortion is directly contradictory to a group that wants to make or keep abortion legal. The fact that they may both support contraceptives is missing the forest for the trees, the primary goals of the two groups are indeed directly contradictory. Achieving the goal of one necessarily means the other fails in their goal. There's nothing artificial about this.