"It is only sexist when men do it."

[Russ Christie]

Hello everyone! I finally decided to sign up as a nerd fighter as I love the thought provoking and intelligent analysis that John/Hank do in some of their videos. Anyways, I was doing some reading on random sites about patents and next thing I knew I stumbled upon a strange documentary that was about how males in society seem to be treated as lesser instead of above our female counterparts (please I am not saying I agree with sexism or that "men are better," It is nonsense). I didn't completely agree with many of the statements from the videos, however I did find some of the points raised valid and worth a healthy debate.

For example, from the videos I watched it lead to me seeing a video with the title above from "TheAmazingAtheist" that I found pretty shocking (I know it is a slightly older video, and if you don't know what I am referring to it should be very simple to find on youtube.) Why were these women receiving praise? Why is it acceptable for females to do "x" but horrendous for a male to do the same thing? I am quite young so I do not know what it was like when women were not treated "equally", but I find it offensive seeing advertisements for Philadelphia cream cheese where men are "man slaves" or are portrayed as a foot stool for a woman. Why did I never find this troubling? Why is it okay for commercials to do stuff like this, but it would be disgusting if a woman was in the mans place? Are we that ashamed of how awful women were treated before I drew my first breath?

I really hope one day society will look at us all equal and I really do think we are, however the last few months I have really been pondering whether we have swung too far the other way now. I know sexism still exists (which I find disgusting) and there are problems like women not getting paid as much in jobs, however I simply don't understand why I am not hearing more about this in news or really anywhere. I personally think society needs to stop itself before we move too far. The "payback" argument I find is arrogant and only degrades society as a whole (I mean if you want to be treated better by society, why do the exact same thing to males as males did to females?)

Instead of going to bed two hours ago, I got all worked up from these videos and I felt I needed some intelligent discussion to relax my mind now that the political issues are rushing through my veins. Thanks for your time!

 

[Deanna Hausman]

By the way, my not giving a reason for why more men might me homeless was partly an attempt to not try and "rationalize", as you say. And I did acknowledge that societal forces work on men in my comment about how men's role as parents should be celebrated and that the idea that they must be the provider who has it all together also stinks. I didn't talk about the others because I don't know, and I'm not going to make stuff up.

[peahat]

I think your responses are pretty boss >:U

[Raef]

Ok. Unlike Deanna, who seems to have much more patience than I do, I'm not going to pretend that your points aren't stupid. 

Your first point is the only one that has any merit at all. While there are many places a homeless woman can go, like homeless/battered women shelters, fewer such places exist for men. Furthermore quite a few homeless people are veterans or mentally disabled. Now, if I were to use your logic here I would just ask the mentally handicapped men, "why don't you get help? Nothing's stopping you." However society expects men to be able to control their own emotions and "tough it out" whenever faced with hardship. This is a problem, but it in no way invalidates feminism or lessens the discrimination women face. As Deanna said, society also still has ideas of how women should behave and their proper role. And these are just as damaging as the sexist expectations of men. 

Now on to your baseless points.

While men are more likely to be successful in their suicide attempts because they tend to use more "extreme" methods like shooting themselves, women are far more likely than men to try to commit suicide. Frankly I don't understand how you don't know this considering how often it's repeated in the many suicide prevention seminars we were all forced to do in school. 

Men make up more of the casualties in war because - surprise! - far more men are soldiers than women. The US doesn't allow women in combat roles, but many other countries don't allow women in their military at all. Ironically this is an example of where women are discriminated against, and heavily. Furthermore while less American military women are KIA, an absurdly high number of them are raped while serving, so it's laughable to try to argue that women in the military somehow have it easier than men.

More men are in prison because (again, surprise!) men commit far more crimes than women, especially violent crimes which tend to have long prison sentences. There is more opportunity in the criminal world for men, so not surprisingly more men are drawn to that world than women. Pretty much the only criminal opportunity for women is prostitution (which should absolutely be legal) which plenty of women get arrested for. However since criminal penalties are fairly small few prostitutes go to prison.

Know why court rulings usually give custody to the mother? Because the father very very rarely even fights for custody. If you look only at the cases where both parents are actively fighting for sole or partial custody the results are just about equal or even favors the father. And the number of fathers being awarded custody have increased over the past 20 years.

Just because there is a law banning discrimination does not mean it doesn't happen. Redlining districts is illegal, but it still happens frequently. Price fixing is illegal but it is rampant in America. The argument that a problem no longer exists simply because a law was passed is absurd. Your stubborn refusal to acknowledge the glass ceiling still exists and is still holding women back in the workplace is equally ridiculous.

Often, women are guilty of their own choices.

Victim blaming. Classy. I won't entirely absolve women of fault for their situation (which Deanna kind of laid out) but the fact that you won't even consider men's role reveals your incredible bias.

Abortion is absolutely a feminist issue. The fetus is in a woman's body and it is imperative that she gets full control of her reproductive health. Proving a fetus is a life that "deserves protecting" is damn near impossible. Religious people for the most part are the only ones who view it as "alive" and they cannot force their religious beliefs onto other people.

Your comments about rape are ignorant beyond belief. Let's go back to something you yourself said:

Often, women are guilty of their own choices.

This is the exact mentality that causes rapists to be acquitted. "She didn't fight hard enough! She never said no! She was asking for it! Look at how slutty she is, she brought it on herself! Bitch is lying!" All of these are bullshit but they all are somehow viewed as valid excuses for rapists. Going deeper, why are most rapes never even reported? Two reasons: because the victim doesn't think anyone will believe her, and because rape kits are incredibly invasive. There is a serious problem with the way we treat rape in this country, and people like you do not help.

Go and get it. No one is trying to stop you

Be a stay-at-home dad, no one's stopping you. Let your wife be the breadwinner as you take care of the kids, no one's stopping you. Talk to your friends openly about your feelings and emotions, no one's stopping you. Go ahead and cry all you want, no one's stopping you. I mean, really, what could be preventing you from going and getting what you want?

[Vertigo_One [Ops Mod]]

Your first point is the only one that has any merit at all. While there are many places a homeless woman can go, like homeless/battered women shelters, fewer such places exist for men. Furthermore quite a few homeless people are veterans or mentally disabled. Now, if I were to use your logic here I would just ask the mentally handicapped men, "why don't you get help? Nothing's stopping you." However society expects men to be able to control their own emotions and "tough it out" whenever faced with hardship. This is a problem, but it in no way invalidates feminism or lessens the discrimination women face. As Deanna said, society also still has ideas of how women should behave and their proper role. And these are just as damaging as the sexist expectations of men.

 
Erm... Here's a shocking thouhght. Maybe mentally handicapped men don't get help because... they're mentally handicapped. They're not able to think as clearly, and as such won't deal with the issue as much.

 

While men are more likely to be successful in their suicide attempts because they tend to use more "extreme" methods like shooting themselves, women are far more likely than men to try to commit suicide. Frankly I don't understand how you don't know this considering how often it's repeated in the many suicide prevention seminars we were all forced to do in school.

 

The fact that women unsucessfully commit suicide proves something. If they wanted to commit suicide in a more definitve way, they would do so. The fact that they don't, that they choose methods which fail, demonstrates a serious problem.

Men make up more of the casualties in war because - surprise! - far more men are soldiers than women. The US doesn't allow women in combat roles, but many other countries don't allow women in their military at all. Ironically this is an example of where women are discriminated against, and heavily. Furthermore while less American military women are KIA, an absurdly high number of them are raped while serving, so it's laughable to try to argue that women in the military somehow have it easier than men.

 

I'm not trying to argue that men are having it easier than women in the military, I'm pointing out that there's a phenomenon that is affecting men far more (not just in terms of armed casualties) and it's not being treated as a gender issue. And here's a fun fact. The world =/= America. This is a global problem.

More men are in prison because (again, surprise!) men commit far more crimes than women, especially violent crimes which tend to have long prison sentences

 

Wow. And I thought you might not be patronising.

I know men commit more crimes than women. The issue I have is no one is conceptualising the reason why as a gender issue that needs solving. Feminists don't care. They don't see men as being influenced by social forces in the same way women are. When women are influenced by it, when there are women showing up disproportionately in a gender statistic, it's always a gender issue. Why is no one investigating what in society makes men commit more crimes as a gender issue?

Know why court rulings usually give custody to the mother? Because the father very very rarely even fights for custody. If you look only at the cases where both parents are actively fighting for sole or partial custody the results are just about equal or even favors the father. And the number of fathers being awarded custody have increased over the past 20 years.

Wow. You show a stat for one state in one country and you think you know everything. Do me a favour and stop imaiging that everything East of the Hudson Bay is like those dark spots on Medievil maps labeled "Here Be Dragons". In the UK, there is a problem with father rights. Social services and family courts repeatedly favour the mother in custody cases. And yet, in the UK, there also are feminists who don't see this as an issue.

Victim blaming. Classy. I won't entirely absolve women of fault for their situation (which Deanna kind of laid out) but the fact that you won't even consider men's role reveals your incredible bias.

Please show me where I didn't consider men's roles. I said that my issue with feminism is it's name, and how its name is representative of the fact that it considers that men's issues and concerning men are somehow second order or less important.

Abortion is absolutely a feminist issue. The fetus is in a woman's body and it is imperative that she gets full control of her reproductive health. Proving a fetus is a life that "deserves protecting" is damn near impossible. Religious people for the most part are the only ones who view it as "alive" and they cannot force their religious beliefs onto other people.

 

No, they can't. But if it is alive, guess what. It has a body too, and it deserves as many rights as do the women involved. Abortion is not a feminist issue in the slightest. It is an issue of biology and the right to life. And I'll happily point you in the direction of several medical professionals who disagree with you on that one.

This is the exact mentality that causes rapists to be acquitted. "She didn't fight hard enough! She never said no! She was asking for it! Look at how slutty she is, she brought it on herself! Bitch is lying!" All of these are bullshit but they all are somehow viewed as valid excuses for rapists.

 

Erm... no. I'm not talking about rape. I'm talking about the world at large. Femimisim at some point has to say "actually women are responsible for their own actions". You can't keep saying forever "it's societies fault" or "it's men's fault". At some point, women have to say "Okay, I'll do X".

Going deeper, why are most rapes never even reported? Two reasons: because the victim doesn't think anyone will believe her, and because rape kits are incredibly invasive. There is a serious problem with the way we treat rape in this country, and people like you do not help.

Rape kits are invasive for one simple reason. Sex is invasive. If you want DNA of the perpetrator of a rape, you're only going to get it one way.

Furthermore, it's not that people "don't believe" women when they say they are rape victims. It's that there isn't enough evidence for a prosecution.

Let your wife be the breadwinner as you take care of the kids, no one's stopping you.

 

I'd happily do that, if she wanted to be a breadwinner.

Go ahead and cry all you want, no one's stopping you.

I do cry.

Go ahead and run for congress. All the evidence says there's not a glass ceiling any more. Women get as many votes and earn as much money as men who do the same thing. So when feminists moan about underepresentation in US government, they have only themselves to blame.

[Raef]

If the mentally handicapped don't get help because they're mentally handicapped and not because they are male or female, then it's not a gender issue and thus has no place in this debate. If you want to debunk the only legitimate point you have then I won't bother stopping you.

Women being more unsuccessful at killing themselves proves nothing. Men and women utilizing different methods to kill themselves does nothing more or less than show their mentalities are different. And why, exactly, is it a problem that women's methods have a higher chance of failing? Your entire argument here is incomprehensible. Phrase it better.

Men dying in war has both an obvious cause and an obvious (if nigh impossible to reach) solution - both of which have nothing to do with gender. You are literally the only person I have ever seen who has tried to turn war casualties into a gender issue, because it is not a gender issue. At all. It's an occupation issue, regarding a field that happens to be both dominated by men and be very dangerous. And since you apparently missed it I did talk about the world:

The US doesn't allow women in combat roles, but many other countries don't allow women in their military at all. Ironically this is an example of where women are discriminated against, and heavily. 

The "global problem" is in the prevalence of war. Reducing the number of male soldiers killed in war can only be done by reducing war.

Men commit more crimes than women because they have better opportunities in the criminal world, which I mentioned in my previous post. And most crime is directly related to a lack of perceived opportunities to make money through legal means. Thus, since men see opportunity to make more money in the criminal world than through legitimate means, they turn to crime. Women, however, have comparatively limited advantages in the criminal world and so more often remain in the non-criminal workforce. And the criminal opportunities women do have in the criminal world (almost exclusively prostitution) have comparatively light prison sentences. So we know why men commit more crimes than women, and the solutions - rehabilitation for prisoners and more economic opportunities for the poor - are likewise known. Which is why you don't hear about studies done on them.

Who's being patronizing now? The study I provided (one more than you, by the way) is legitimate, and there are others like it. And it wouldn't surprise me if the same situation existed in the UK - where it appears that there is discrimination against men in custody cases simply because men hardly ever fight for custody.

You have an issue with a movement exclusively about women's issues being called feminism? Yeah, of course feminists are more focused on hardships facing women than facing men, it's in the damn name. This is like saying you have a problem with anti-whaling activists because they give no thought to all the dolphins killed in fishing. People care about some issues more than others, you can't fault them for not giving equal consideration to every single problem all people face. And by the way, the fact that you haven't once admitted to how men perpetuate the glass ceiling - that you deny the glass ceiling even exists - would be where you "didn't consider men's roles". I can't point it out to you because it's not there. That's the point.

You tried (unsuccessfully) to make war casualties a gender issue because it mostly affects men, but when we're talking about pregnancy - which happens exclusively to women - all of a sudden it's just a biological issue? Are you serious? Even in the scientific community what constitutes "life" is not universally agreed upon, and you'll get a different answer based on whether you're talking to a biologist or an astronomist or another specialization. The defining of a fetus as a life is a religious definition, not a scientific one. And no, I don't give a damn about your "several medical professionals". Feel free to tell me who they are if you want, though. 

The world - and your opinions - don't exist in a vacuum. Your thoughts on women's behavior colors your thoughts on their responsibilities colors your thoughts on how much they "deserved" to get raped. It's called subtext, or reading between the lines, or however you want to put it. Your misogyny has gone a long way towards convincing me you're exactly the type of guy to blame a woman for her own rape. Which is incredibly ironic, given what you said here:

Rape victims do get taken seriously. It's something of a myth that in general they don't.

Guess what, bro. You don't take rape victims seriously. And you don't have to explicitly say something stupid or insensitive about rape to make that true.

Dude. If a girl tells you she felt sex with you was invasive you did something massively wrong. Sex is not inherently invasive because that would mean it's unpleasant for girls and it obviously is not. Comparing rape kits to consensual sex is...god, it just shows such a lack of empathy and understanding that I'm not even going to try anymore with this point.

You clearly missed what I was going for with the last point, and again displaying a lack of empathy. Many men feel unable to do any of those things because of the unseen pressures society places on them. Nothing is physically or logistically keeping men from being stay at home dads or being open with their emotions and crying, just as nothing is physically stopping women from becoming CEOs or Congressmen. The barriers are impossible to see or pin down - but they are powerful, and their impact on society (and, since we're talking about feminism, on women) cannot be written off and ignored like you are trying to do.

So when feminists moan about underepresentation in US government, they have only themselves to blame.

Even more concrete example of victim blaming, this time explicitly stated. Of course, you didn't deny you were blaming the victim before, so I shouldn't be surprised. 

[Vertigo_One [Ops Mod]]

If the mentally handicapped don't get help because they're mentally handicapped and not because they are male or female, then it's not a gender issue and thus has no place in this debate. If you want to debunk the only legitimate point you have then I won't bother stopping you.

It is a gender issue because even among the mentally handicapped, the women are more often looked after

Women being more unsuccessful at killing themselves proves nothing. Men and women utilizing different methods to kill themselves does nothing more or less than show their mentalities are different. And why, exactly, is it a problem that women's methods have a higher chance of failing? Your entire argument here is incomprehensible. Phrase it better.

My argument is that something, some social force, is driving men to commit suicide more often. Although women might try to commit it more often, the failure rate demonstrates something is holding them back, and it is not simple inability. The fact is, if they really wanted to do it, they would.

Men dying in war has both an obvious cause and an obvious (if nigh impossible to reach) solution - both of which have nothing to do with gender. You are literally the only person I have ever seen who has tried to turn war casualties into a gender issue, because it is not a gender issue. At all. It's an occupation issue, regarding a field that happens to be both dominated by men and be very dangerous. And since you apparently missed it I did talk about the world:

Wow "Many other countries". Yes, and yet men are still dying more often. Did you notice how at Screbenica, they killed all the men of the town? Those wern't combat deaths.

Men commit more crimes than women because they have better opportunities in the criminal world, which I mentioned in my previous post.

 

I'm sorry, but did you seriously use the phrase "better oppotunities in the Criminal world"? Are you seriously of the opinion that all crime is like something out of the Sopranos. Not all crime is organised, in fact the vast majority of it isn't. Women can steal, women can commit fraud, women can be violent. The idea that women somehow have less "oppotunity" to commit crime is absurd.

And it wouldn't surprise me if the same situation existed in the UK - where it appears that there is discrimination against men in custody cases simply because men hardly ever fight for custody.

 

No. Just no. The vast majority of cases in the UK, men do fight for custody and they don't get it. And the fact that the situation "seems the same" to you is just sick. You want numbers, let's look at the numbers

http://www.the-spearhead.com/2011/08/22/the-bias-against-u-s-father...

Do you really think that father's rights movements spring up because the father's can't be bothered to look after their kids.

You have an issue with a movement exclusively about women's issues being called feminism? Yeah, of course feminists are more focused on hardships facing women than facing men, it's in the damn name. This is like saying you have a problem with anti-whaling activists because they give no thought to all the dolphins killed in fishing.

 

Don't be an idiot. Feminists claim they are for equality, anti Whale activists claim they want to protect whales. If feminists are for equality, why do they not equally prioritise the issues of men and women.

People care about some issues more than others, you can't fault them for not giving equal consideration to every single problem all people face.

 

I can fault them for being one sided if they claim to be about equality.

And by the way, the fact that you haven't once admitted to how men perpetuate the glass ceiling - that you deny the glass ceiling even exists - would be where you "didn't consider men's roles". I can't point it out to you because it's not there. That's the point.

 

The glass ceiling doesn't exist. At least, not in politics, which is where it counts. Studies repeatedly show women in the US and UK getting similar ammounts of votes and rasing similar amounts of campaign finances. There isn't a glass ceiling in politics, and there are legal protections in place for the corperate world.

You tried (unsuccessfully) to make war casualties a gender issue because it mostly affects men, but when we're talking about pregnancy - which happens exclusively to women - all of a sudden it's just a biological issue? Are you serious?

Yes, because the child is there too. War is a gender issue because men get affected more. Abortion isn't a gender issue because both male and female foetus's get aborted.

The world - and your opinions - don't exist in a vacuum. Your thoughts on women's behavior colors your thoughts on their responsibilities colors your thoughts on how much they "deserved" to get raped. It's called subtext, or reading between the lines, or however you want to put it. Your misogyny has gone a long way towards convincing me you're exactly the type of guy to blame a woman for her own rape. Which is incredibly ironic, given what you said here:

 

I'm not a mysoginist. I simply don't believe that women's problems are the only ones out there. Your inference that I am a mysoginist says more about you than about me. It says that you feel the need to characterise people who disagree with you so negatively in order to feel sure of your position. I'm not saying women don't have problems, I am saying that many of these problems have been dramatically solved, and yet feminists continue to act as if they are just as bad as they always were.

Guess what, bro. You don't take rape victims seriously. And you don't have to explicitly say something stupid or insensitive about rape to make that true.

Here's a tip for general debate practice. Don't ascribe views to someone you don't know. I do take rape seriously. I take it very seriously. But you know what I also take seriously? The Criminal Justice System.

Dude. If a girl tells you she felt sex with you was invasive you did something massively wrong. Sex is not inherently invasive because that would mean it's unpleasant for girls and it obviously is not.

Invasive isn't a synonym for unpleasant.

Comparing rape kits to consensual sex is...god, it just shows such a lack of empathy and understanding that I'm not even going to try anymore with this point.

I am not comparing the two. I am saying that in order to get DNA from an ejaculation into the vagina, where do you think they are going to have to go? That's right, inside the vagina.

You clearly missed what I was going for with the last point, and again displaying a lack of empathy. Many men feel unable to do any of those things because of the unseen pressures society places on them.

Yes, but we're changing. Women should too. Run for congress. Be bread winners. Become CEOs.

The barriers are impossible to see or pin down - but they are powerful, and their impact on society (and, since we're talking about feminism, on women) cannot be written off and ignored like you are trying to do.

And yet, when I talk about invisible barriers affecting men, suddenly I'm some kind of mysogonist.

Even more concrete example of victim blaming, this time explicitly stated. Of course, you didn't deny you were blaming the victim before, so I shouldn't be surprised.

Prove me wrong. Answer this, if women gain as many votes, and raise as much money for campagin finance, why don't we see more in congress? Or parliament?

[Raef]

No. Just because it happens to affect one gender more than the other does not make it a gender issue. It's a governmental policy issue, caused by the lack of funds for mentally handicapped outreach programs and lack of programs for veterans and the poor.

Although women might try to commit it more often, the failure rate demonstrates something is holding them back, and it is not simple inability. The fact is, if they really wanted to do it, they would.

I can't believe you actually think this.There are multiple reasons why women try different methods to kill ..., but not one is because they don't actually want to - and one is actually "simple inability".

Seriously? You really want to bring civilian casualties into your argument? A single massacre is nothing compared to world war crime overall. Civilians are killed indiscriminately, except for the women who are usually also raped before being killed and (both male and female) children who might be enslaved. And if at this point you still don't understand that more men die in wars because more men are in the military then I can't help you with that.

Yep, I did say that. It's how economists are taught to analyze and look at crime, and it's no less legitimate just because you scoff at it. In the organized crime world - or the criminal lifestyle that actually generates earned income - men undeniably have more opportunity than women. As for petty crime like theft, while both men and women have more equal opportunity, the penalties are fairly light and result in little if any prison time. The bigger crimes - the violent ones - are committed by men far more often than by women, which is why there are also more men than women in prison for violent crimes. Yes women can be violent, but according to crime statistics they are not nearly as violent as men, probably because they are physically weaker.

The vast majority of cases in the UK, men do fight for custody and they don't get it.

I'll believe that once you provide a source for it. Also, the study you provided is flawed because it doesn't separate the cases in which the father actually sought for custody; and as we can see from the studies I provided, once you account for whether the father actually sought custody the apparent discrimination against men disappears. The numbers are far less noteworthy if you take a look at what actually happens. 

If feminists are for equality, why do they not equally prioritise the issues of men and women.

Because they're feminists? They seek equality by trying to shape society so that women enjoy all the privilege that men do. Because whether or not you want to admit it, men enjoy privileges that women do not. And while women also enjoy some privileges that men do not it does not invalidate feminism. Or, to put it in perspective, try asking why are men's rights movements so focused on men's issues when they ought to weigh both men's and women's issues equally. (Just in case you didn't get it, that should have sounded insane - and asking why feminism doesn't value men's issues equally is just as insane).

The women who do run may get a relatively equal number or votes, but not nearly as many women run for office and get elected. Also, it is laughable that you think politics is the only place "where it counts". Like it or not politics and business are connected, and women need to have a strong presence in both before we can even start talking about the possibility of the glass ceiling not existing. Right now they don't in either. And because you seemed to have missed it the first time I said it:

Just because there is a law banning discrimination does not mean it doesn't happen. Redlining districts is illegal, but it still happens frequently. Price fixing is illegal but it is rampant in America. The argument that a problem no longer exists simply because a law was passed is absurd. 

If we're talking about the rates of male/female fetus abortion then men have a massive advantage here. It's not so much a problem in America outside of a few small populations, but in other countries girls are aborted far more often than boys. Unlike in your own examples, there is a causal relation here between gender of the baby and the decision to abort it, so this is a feminist/gender issue showing extreme discrimination against women. 

I called you a misogynist because you have said more than enough to qualify you as one. Just because you don't explicitly state you hate women doesn't mean you're not a misogynist. You have displayed zero empathy or understanding for the obstacles women face. You have done nothing but repeatedly blame the victim, which you don't deny doing. Even if you are not necessarily a misogynist you have misogynistic beliefs, there is no denying that.

Pretty much no feminist believes women have it as bad as they did before. But they don't delude themselves into thinking all problems have been solved.

Just because you say you take rape seriously doesn't mean you actually do. Not a single thing you have said shows that you take rape seriously. Your beliefs talk way louder than that weak little defense. And here's a debate tip for you: if you want to be taken seriously actually provide sources for what you claim before you're called out on it. Considering a fair amount of what you've been saying has been refuted by actual real world statistics and phenomena some sources will do wonders for your credibility.

Context is all-important. Obviously "invasive" and "unpleasant" in general aren't synonyms but in this case and with this usage they can be, and are.

Rape kits are invasive for one simple reason. Sex is invasive

Right, you're not comparing them, you're equating them! All better now. But seriously, while in physical terms they may be similar, emotionally they couldn't be more different. That's the part I can't believe you don't understand.

You're not a misogynist because you (correctly) believe there are invisible societal barriers holding back men. You're a misogynist because you believe there exist barriers for men while at the same time denying that barriers just as strong if not stronger are holding back women. Incidentally if someone believes that there aren't any barriers for either s/he would be delusional, while a person who believes there are barriers harming both would be right.

And you end by reinforcing and trying to defend your victim-blaming. Again, this kind of thinking and belief is what makes you at the very least misogynistic (and IMO simply a misogynist).

[peahat]

"Feminists care. While mainstream feminism may be looking at other issues, feminists care. The mainstream movement does work towards helping men too. It's just that no movement can cover every injustice all the time. That's why there are different movements. And members in one can be members in several."

I really liked that response!

I think it's common for people to assume that anyone who is interested in feminism can't be interested in anything else. Just because feminism specifically has to do with women's rights doesn't mean that a feminist will care about women's rights ONLY. It is possible for a person to be a feminist AND be concerned with prisons, war, and men's issues etc etc.

[Rem]

Feminism strikes me as a bit weird.

I support improving the quality of life for all civilization and ridding the world of inequality and injustice, and all, but it just seems a bit weird to focus on making women and men distinct only by biology. I mean, I approve of equality...it's just not the biggest issue the world has to face, I guess. It's like trying to make it so people from Oklahoma don't have any more disadvantages than people from Texas, and vice versa--it's a noble cause, and all, it just isn't that big a deal to me in the face of, you know...poverty. Death. War. That deal.

You can't relieve a woman who's about to be raped of her duties and call in her male substitute, nor can you take a man who's about to commit suicide and stop him because the available spots for male suicides has already been filled today, so he has to do it tomorrow. We should stop this stuff, but gender really shouldn't play a role.

...That said, I guess feminism has some really good benefits--since a lot of patriarchal cultures have the mother in the family raise their kids and not much else, educating the mother and giving her enough context to influence her husband's actions could sway a lot of issues. Although this is hearsay and thus not a valid source, I remember hearing about some statistic showing that improving the quality of women's lives and education caused a massive power shift in a couple of towns or villages somewhere. Don't take this as real evidence, but I'm going to try and look it up to see if it's accurate.

[Vertigo_One [Ops Mod]]

We should stop this stuff, but gender really shouldn't play a role.

The issue is though, when social phonomenon X is affecting one gender more negatively than another, it means that somehow gender is causing an issue. Now I agree with you that the solution isn't to make men and women the same, but it would go a long way towards it if we recognised that there is an issue regarding gender in society.

[Raef]

when social phonomenon X is affecting one gender more negatively than another, it means that somehow gender is causing an issue.

No. Correlation does not imply causation. Just because a person's gender is correlated with a phenomenon, does not mean gender causes that phenomenon.

[Vertigo_One [Ops Mod]]

Yet, women make that claim all the time.

Also, while it may not prove causation, it may potentially imply it, leading to it as an avenue of investigation.