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We have a very selective and one-sided conversation about traditional gender roles that generally hinges upon notions of male privilege and patriarchy. That's

by stolio 12y ago

We have a very selective and one-sided conversation about traditional gender roles that generally hinges upon notions of male privilege and patriarchy. That's not very helpful when trying to understand why men are more likely to overwork and undervalue themselves since being privileged and overvalued (for their masculinity, of course) predicts they would do the opposite. (You can shoe-horn this into a feminist critique by saying the men who become scientists do so because they fail to meet their gender expectations, but the guys down in the coal mines or dying in wars are as manly as it gets, and they're also overworked and undervalued.) I'm not just questioning traditional gender roles, I'm also questioning the feminist framework I used for years to understand those gender roles.

cauterized 12y ago
I realize this is a "no true Scotsman" argument, but... The feminism I was brought up in sees the limitations of male gender roles as the other face of the same coin. Women will never truly have equality of opportunity and expectation until traditional male gender roles and expectations are also dissolved - both because male gender roles can't exist without female gender roles and because women's opportunity in the workplace is limited by the need for their partners to take on more responsibility in the home. Unfortunately, this assertion often runs into accusations of attempts to "feminize" men.
- stolio 12y ago
  It sounds like you don't care about male problems because they're inherently important to you, but they're just a stepping stone to fixing the real problems which are the female problems. I see a lot of political will and capital devoted towards the few areas of society where women lag behind men: STEM, C-level/board positions, and being billionaires. But what about the areas where women are doing better than men, like education in general? What about the gender gaps of being a war casualty (90%+ male), dying at work (90%+ male) or being incarcerated (90%+ male)? Are these things really only worth dealing with because as a side effect women will have more opportunities in the workplace? I agree that we need to be honest about gender roles and both their good and bad aspects. I disagree that feminism is leading the way.
  - cauterized 12y ago
    I do care about men and I agree that those are problems that need to be fixed, but they're outside the scope of feminism. (Although one could argue that if certain flavors of feminism succeeded they would become much less lopsidedly male problems because a side effect would be that women would represent a higher percent of war casualties and job fatalities, but I'm not sure anyone would call that in itself progress.) Feminism isn't about fixing all the things that are wrong with the world, it's about fixing the problems that hold women back, which btw are not just about things like c-level board positions. Women are less likely to get proper followup care after heart attacks, for instance, even though they experience them nearly as frequently as men. Sexual assault and rape still affect women at such a higher rate than men it's staggering. Women are also far more likely than men to experience crippling depression (how much of that is due to biological vs cultural factors is unknown), although men tend to be more successful at committing suicide. And the growing restrictions on abortion access WILL cause women's deaths just as they did before Roe v Wade. There are other movements that address other problems with the world (pacifism, labor rights, and more). Being a feminist doesn't preclude also believing or participating in those movements. But just as sex trafficking is outside the scope of labor rights, improving safety precautions for dangerous jobs is outside the scope of feminism. Does that make sense?
    - stolio 12y ago
      > Sexual assault and rape still affect women at such a higher rate than men it's staggering. This depends on who you trust to gather the data and who is included in that data. I really don't want to have the rape/sexual assault discussion because it's never productive, but I will say that I'm not at all impressed with how feminism has handled the subject and that it's created barriers to male victims getting help and support. There are no large scale movements that deal with specifically male problems. Men's Rights is trying but it's labeled 'hate speech' by feminists. If we're being honest there are no feminists in the Men's Rights movement, there are no feminists who give equal weight to men's problems in general because feminism is based on the idea that women's problems are more serious, more important and more urgent. That may have been reasonable in 1915 when women couldn't vote, in 2015 I'm not buying it, not even close. Have you even looked at, for example, education numbers recently? Women get more degrees per field except for the hard STEM fields[0], women go to college more than men in general[1] and the individual group that needs the most help in education is a subset of males[2]. It's been since 1991 that women have been graduating college more than men[3]. But instead of dealing with the majority of the education system where men are doing worse than women, we constantly hear about the few areas where women aren't doing as well and we're told it's because of sexism, micro-aggressions, oppression, etc. and we all need to take a stand together c'mon we can do it! There's no effort to close the high school graduation gender gap, the college enrollment or graduation gaps, it's only where women are behind that changes need to be made. If we changed the numbers to what feminists want - STEM fields evenly split male-female - we wouldn't have equality in education, it would be female domination in education. It already is female domination in education, adding STEM would just make it worse. [0] - http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/14/percentage-of-bachelors-degrees-conferred-to-women-by-major-1970-2012/ http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/14/percentage-of-bachelor... [1] - http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/03/06/womens-college-enrollment-gains-leave-men-behind/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/03/06/womens-colle... [2] - http://blackboysreport.org/national-summary/black-male-graduation-rates http://blackboysreport.org/national-summary/black-male-gradu... [3] - http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2011/gender-gap-in-education.aspx http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2011/gender-gap-in-...

by stolio 12y ago

cauterized 12y ago

I realize this is a "no true Scotsman" argument, but... The feminism I was brought up in sees the limitations of male gender roles as the other face of the same coin. Women will never truly have equality of opportunity and expectation until traditional male gender roles and expectations are also dissolved - both because male gender roles can't exist without female gender roles and because women's opportunity in the workplace is limited by the need for their partners to take on more responsibility in the home. Unfortunately, this assertion often runs into accusations of attempts to "feminize" men.

stolio 12y ago
It sounds like you don't care about male problems because they're inherently important to you, but they're just a stepping stone to fixing the real problems which are the female problems. I see a lot of political will and capital devoted towards the few areas of society where women lag behind men: STEM, C-level/board positions, and being billionaires. But what about the areas where women are doing better than men, like education in general? What about the gender gaps of being a war casualty (90%+ male), dying at work (90%+ male) or being incarcerated (90%+ male)? Are these things really only worth dealing with because as a side effect women will have more opportunities in the workplace? I agree that we need to be honest about gender roles and both their good and bad aspects. I disagree that feminism is leading the way.
- cauterized 12y ago
  I do care about men and I agree that those are problems that need to be fixed, but they're outside the scope of feminism. (Although one could argue that if certain flavors of feminism succeeded they would become much less lopsidedly male problems because a side effect would be that women would represent a higher percent of war casualties and job fatalities, but I'm not sure anyone would call that in itself progress.) Feminism isn't about fixing all the things that are wrong with the world, it's about fixing the problems that hold women back, which btw are not just about things like c-level board positions. Women are less likely to get proper followup care after heart attacks, for instance, even though they experience them nearly as frequently as men. Sexual assault and rape still affect women at such a higher rate than men it's staggering. Women are also far more likely than men to experience crippling depression (how much of that is due to biological vs cultural factors is unknown), although men tend to be more successful at committing suicide. And the growing restrictions on abortion access WILL cause women's deaths just as they did before Roe v Wade. There are other movements that address other problems with the world (pacifism, labor rights, and more). Being a feminist doesn't preclude also believing or participating in those movements. But just as sex trafficking is outside the scope of labor rights, improving safety precautions for dangerous jobs is outside the scope of feminism. Does that make sense?
  - stolio 12y ago
    > Sexual assault and rape still affect women at such a higher rate than men it's staggering. This depends on who you trust to gather the data and who is included in that data. I really don't want to have the rape/sexual assault discussion because it's never productive, but I will say that I'm not at all impressed with how feminism has handled the subject and that it's created barriers to male victims getting help and support. There are no large scale movements that deal with specifically male problems. Men's Rights is trying but it's labeled 'hate speech' by feminists. If we're being honest there are no feminists in the Men's Rights movement, there are no feminists who give equal weight to men's problems in general because feminism is based on the idea that women's problems are more serious, more important and more urgent. That may have been reasonable in 1915 when women couldn't vote, in 2015 I'm not buying it, not even close. Have you even looked at, for example, education numbers recently? Women get more degrees per field except for the hard STEM fields[0], women go to college more than men in general[1] and the individual group that needs the most help in education is a subset of males[2]. It's been since 1991 that women have been graduating college more than men[3]. But instead of dealing with the majority of the education system where men are doing worse than women, we constantly hear about the few areas where women aren't doing as well and we're told it's because of sexism, micro-aggressions, oppression, etc. and we all need to take a stand together c'mon we can do it! There's no effort to close the high school graduation gender gap, the college enrollment or graduation gaps, it's only where women are behind that changes need to be made. If we changed the numbers to what feminists want - STEM fields evenly split male-female - we wouldn't have equality in education, it would be female domination in education. It already is female domination in education, adding STEM would just make it worse. [0] - http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/14/percentage-of-bachelors-degrees-conferred-to-women-by-major-1970-2012/ http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/14/percentage-of-bachelor... [1] - http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/03/06/womens-college-enrollment-gains-leave-men-behind/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/03/06/womens-colle... [2] - http://blackboysreport.org/national-summary/black-male-graduation-rates http://blackboysreport.org/national-summary/black-male-gradu... [3] - http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2011/gender-gap-in-education.aspx http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2011/gender-gap-in-...