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"However, you are very selectively choosing facts to draw a picture in which men "have the same amount of gender equality issues (maybe even more) than women"."
by nawitus 14y ago
"However, you are very selectively choosing facts to draw a picture in which men "have the same amount of gender equality issues (maybe even more) than women"."
I'm not, really. Feminist discourse is based on the claim that women have more gender issues. They never really argue for that position. I've linked a list of gender equality issues (though my primary source is unfortunately not in English).
Here's a book on the subject if you're interested: http://granum.uta.fi/granum/kirjanTiedot.php?tuote_id=18450 http://granum.uta.fi/granum/kirjanTiedot.php?tuote_id=18450
"It is of primary relevance, because without properly understanding how we arrived at this point in history, you couldn't possibly evaluate the actual scale of gender disparities in social relations."
Yes you can. We can look at metrics for gender issues: e.g. do women get paid less or more (they get paid the same per hour), do women get raped more than men (not in USA), is the majority of violence made against women (it's about 50:50). It doesn't matter if women were discriminated against more in the past, if empirical evidence shows that they're not.
"what we do not need is more gendered lines being drawn in the sand."
Agree. Many men's rights activists agree on that point, and are against gender roles that hurt both men and women.
"Moreover, we do not have a social structure in which men's labor and sexual faculties are institutionalized in a form that is under female control, which would be a huge red flag that the pendulum has swung too far."
Your sentence implies that men's labor and sexual faculties are under male control, that's not true. Women decide who wins the elctions - majority of voters are women: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20231337 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20231337
"One can advance equality and be vigilant against sexism, racism, and other forms of bigotry and discriminatory behaviors without resorting to more of this us vs. them bullshit that "men's rights" evokes."
That would argue that we only need men's rights movement, not a women's rights movement. Since the women's rights movement doesn't concern men's rights, we need a men's rights movement.
The biggest feminist organizations do not accept me as a member because of my gender. Their organization discriminates on the basis of gender. That's not equality. I cannot take part in the women's rights movement because of my gender. That's why we need a men's rights movement - so that men's gender equality problems are also taken care of. Currently 90% of the gender equality resources in politics is used for women's rights. That number should be 50%.
"In sum, a "men's rights" movement is not going to increase equality, because it is only going to codify more gendered division in the social fabric."
You make the implicit claim that men's rights movement is for gender roles. That's not true. In addition, you can use your own argument against women's rights movement, as it 'codifices a gendered division'.
"If you're really interested in enhancing equality as a social good,"
I'm really interestd in equality, and men's rights is the most important movement in recent years. Almost nobody used to talk about gender equality issues concerning men. In recent years, after the men's rights movement was formed, there have been small mentions of men's rights in official statements in the country I live in. Without a men's rights movement all the gender equality policy would say would be about women. Therefore, it's pretty clear that the men's rights movement increases equality.
I cannot link sources because they're not in English, but it used to be that only representatives from women's rights organizations were given representation in the official gender equality council of my country. They only talked about women's rights. Now a few seats have been given to the representatives of the men's rights movement.
- tylerhwillis 14y ago>do women get raped more than men (not in USA) This is very wrong. The link you provide in the original comment is for violent crimes (including rape), not for rape alone. There is little doubt that women are more likely to be raped in the US than men. Here's a relevant study from the Bureau of Justice Statistics: http://bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=1146 http://bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=1146 "Overall, an estimated 91% of the victims of rape and sexual assault were female."
- pbhjpbhj 14y ago>"Overall, an estimated 91% of the victims of rape and sexual assault were female." // It may not change the ratio but of course one must remember that is "victims of rape and sexual assaults that were reported and recorded as such". The study linked, (text version http://bjs.gov/content/pub/ascii/SOO.TXT http://bjs.gov/content/pub/ascii/SOO.TXT) says only a third of the rapes reported to them were reported to police and in my cursory glance I couldn't see how many of those reported led to a conviction and how many led to a dismissal of charges, etc.. However I did notice this: "In 1994 victims reported about 1 rape/sexual assault victimization of a female victim for every 270 females in the general population; for males, the rate was substantially lower, with about 1 rape/sexual assault of a male victim for every 5,000 male residents age 12 or older." It's often joked on certain forums, eg reddit, that men who're incarcerated are likely to suffer rape (I'd guess women do too but the jokes are always concerning men it seems). I wonder how true that is and how well these figures reflect those crimes.
- hopeless_case 14y agoMen are less likely to report sexual assault and rape against them than women are, for a number of reasons. One being that rape is defined as being penetrated against your will, and not being made to penetrate against your will. Any study that counts convictions, or even complaints, it going to underestimate male victimhood. You need to look at victim surveys to have any hope of estimating how many man are raped, and how many women rape. See my other post in this thread for details on that.
- 14y ago