Men's Rights

[jessica r]

(without any idea of how I got there) I recently read about Men's Rights and some of the issues for which men fight. I will be honest, as a woman I was shocked and then somewhat amused and slightly annoyed that some men felt the need to define their rights, when "rights"-particularly in the US, were written for men and then women and other minorities had to step up and define and claim those rights. But after I opened my mind to these issues I found that some are very interesting and relevant. So I wanted to post to see what other people think. Here are some of the issues, in no particular order. Men, feel free to correct me if I state something the wrong way or to add something to the list:

1) Men have responsibility to children they father without a choice in the matter of abortion
2) Men make the same amount of money for physical labor as a woman who cannot perform the same physical tasks
3) Men are still expected to "court" women and pay for items on dates, etc
4)Men are required to register for the draft while women are not
5)Men often lose custody of children in divorce and rarely receive child support when they do win custody
6)Violence against men committed by women isnt taken seriously (rape, spousal abuse)
7) Men dont have the creative freedom in their dress codes that women do
8)Men often do not get paid paternity leave
9) The preference of women and children over men in emergency situations
10) Men receive harsher punishments for crime

All of these issues are based on trending data. There are also some issues about men dying sooner than women, girls performing better than boys in school, more money and attention being given to breast cancer research than prostate cancer research.......

[Kenny]

In order to make sure minorites aren't getting screwed (women are minorites? Aren't they like 50% of the population?), sometimes the majority gets overlooked. Personally I'm ok with this, as it beats the hell out of the alternative.

[Katie]

Agreed. Though it isn't always about minorities, it is about who has more privilege. Male privilege exists.

[jessica r]

Sorry - I mispoke. Women are not in the minority--thanks for pointing that out. I like the way Katie puts it--privilege and not numbers. Its easy to make that leap and assumption, but it is not always true-maybe rarely true that the majority necessarily has the privilege. If that were the case then the poor ofthe world would have much more privilege.

[sabelmouse]

usually 51 unless infanticide is practiced or a policy of starving the girls to feed the boys.

[Pumpkin Matt]

You shouldn't be okay with this, ideally no-one's rights get overlooked.

[Decepticon]

1) That one is a bit obnoxious, honestly. I'm not sure of a fix, but having to pay child support on a fluke that you wanted gone is a shitty situation, I would imagine. Especially considering how much child support amounts to.
2) This is pretty much bullshit. Men still get paid more for the same work on average, and women who do said labor alongside men will eventually get to be nearly/just as strong. The variances between strengths of the sexes is about equal to that between individuals. Which is to say--negligible. Women don't get as big (usually), but mass is not equal to strength.
3) Not so much these days depending on where you are. Also a pretty bullshit claim, anyway. This puts men in the position of power as a chooser. So long as men have to court that means women are relegated to veto power, while never being able to suggest a bill themselves.
4) This is a valid complaint, though a more valid complaint would be that a draft exists in a democratic free country. If the military can't get enough recruits to fight a war voluntarily then the people have spoken, and the war should not be fought regardless of its purpose.
5) This ties into 1 as being shitty and valid.
6) Also ties into 1. It's a social construct that should disappear when women are empowered enough that a man doesn't need to feel ashamed for being unable to defend himself.
7) What freedom? Slacks or skirt? Jewelery? There's really not much difference here, and men are the ones that instituted dress codes in the first place. Don't like it? Change society to remove dress codes. This is a sociological problem that is far deeper than gender.
8) That's because men don't get pregnant. Women get leave because they get sick, can't lift things, can't stand for long periods, need to be in the hospital, and then need recovery time for their hormones. It's not so they can spend time with their new babies. The office doesn't care about that.
9) This ties into 6 in that it's based on women being weaker, which should go away if feminism is successful in the future.
10) Men are more likely to commit violent crimes, but so far as I know with equal crimes there is usually relatively equal punishment. This I'd have to see the stats on and where they came from, though.

[Zoe Redding]

Actually for your number ten men are statistically found to repeat violent crime than women and psychologically found so too.

[Megan]

Girls perform better than boys in school because - and this is a generalisation, just like the 'girls perform better than boys in school' generalisation - we work harder. Deal with it.
"Violence against men committed by women isnt taken seriously (rape, spousal abuse)" This is in fact a good point; although domestic violence against men only makes up a small percentage of domestic violence, it does need to be taken more seriously. Although, just a point, women don't rape, they sexually assault. It's classified as sexual assault. It's not rape. But that doesn't make it any less important, of course.
"Men dont have the creative freedom in their dress codes that women do" Do they care? Seriously, it's a question. I don't know.

[Matt]

"we work harder. Deal with it."

That's fine. I didn't work hard at all really. I still got straight A's and took AP courses plus a 1500 on the SAT (this was back when it only went to 1600 all of you youngins, that were about to insult me because the scale went up to 2400. We didn't have an essay). :)

[Megan]

I'm English, so I don't know anything about SATs, but I shall assume that's good.
Guys get really pissed off sometimes when you point out that girls work harder than they do at my age (mid-teens), but it's true, just like it's true that we're more mature, and Ubereil is right, that's nothing to do with prejudice or unfair rights.

[Übereil]

It might be worth pointing out that this is on a general level though. There are guys that work as hard as most girls and girls that work as hard as most guys etc. But in general girls develop their maturity on an earlier level than guys, and as a result they get better grades in school.

[Adam J. M. Eagleton]

"It might be worth pointing out that this is on a general level though."

She did put "and this is a generalisation", you know.