Top 5 reasons why I Hate women

[gtarman]

Holy wow, intense and elaborate discussion.

My 2 cents on the whole thing is that men and women are actually fundamentally different - neither are superior or inferior, just two different sides of the same coin.

There is definitely crossover, and it's not black and white by any means...but when it comes down to it masculinity and femininity are two different groups of qualities. Men are masculine, and women are feminine. Which is why I think trying to make everybody equal is doomed to failure - it's apples and oranges. There are advantages to being a man just as there are advantages to being a woman, and each have their disadvantages as well.

I'm all for preventing violence and supporting personal freedoms, but outside of that I think that people on both sides of the fence just need to stop whinging about their lot and deal with it.

(Not directed at anybody here btw, I'm speaking in generalities).

[ballzac]

I was hoping for a rebuttal, Raket. Do I take your silence to mean that I have convinced you that the pay gap is not due to discrimination? Can you explain why single, childless women earn more than their male counterparts if the gender pay gap is due to discrimination against women and not due to their personal choices?

The trouble with analyses that conclude that it's due to discrimination is that they always ignore a lot of the important factors. They usually take the total pay and divide it by the number of hours worked. So a woman working 20 hours a week for $400 is earning half what a man working 50 hours a week for $2000 is. The problem with this is that the number of hours you are willing to work per week has a direct influence on your pay per hour. Say, if a woman works a 9-5 job and leaves on the dot at 5 every day to pick up the kids from school, and the husband works the same job, but stays back as late as is needed to finish whatever he is working on, he may only be working an extra 5 hours a week, but his value to the company as an employee is much greater than just an extra 1/8th of his wife's. He is likely to get more opportunities for promotion and be paid a higher salary.

A lot of these studies do not even take into account whether the work is being done at day time or night time. This is such an obvious thing that needs to be taken into account, but you'd be surprised how many don't. Anyone who chooses to do shift work should be paid more than those who don't, and if that happens to be men more often than women, it's not fair on the men who are working shitty hours that people campaign to have women's wages increased.

Most of these studies compare people in the same industry. This means that when they compare men and women working in the mining industry, they are comparing men who have chosen to live away from their family for months at a time working in a remote location and doing dangerous and physically demanding work, with women who work 25 minutes from home in an air-conditioned office, just because they both work for a mining company.

Seriously, these studies are freely available to look at, and I think most people would be shocked at how few aspects of personal choice are taken into account, or equivalently, how many of the important controls are left out of the equation. But in spite of the public perception, most of these studies conclude that a certain percentage, say 5%, is unaccounted for, and may include discrimination. Unless you are reading work funded by, and published in, feminist echo-chambers, there is no certainty from anyone that any of the gap at all is due to discrimination.

And this gets back to why I have a problem with feminism in general. The gender discrimination wage gap myth may have been created and/or spread by certain individuals who do not represent the majority of feminists, but I think the average coffee-shop feminist needs to take some responsibility for the reality that this is being spread as fact by most people, including themselves, without many people actually taking the time to really find out if this is all true.

The same goes for the domestic violence statistics. I wouldn't go so far as to say there's a highly coordinated effort to suppress the facts, as they're easy to find for anyone who wants to look for them, but they're certainly being ignored by probably every feminist organisation out there, and there have been attempt to silence people by some radical feminist groups. Erin Pizzey is a good example. She started one of the first refuges for battered women, but contrary to her expectations, she found that the women were often as violent as the men they had left. She concluded that, on average, women are equally as violent as men (which is supported by domestic violence statistics) and that most violent relationships are reciprocal, in that both partners will be violent towards each other. After this, she and her family received death threats from radical feminists, and her dog was killed, eventually leading to her leaving the country in fear of her life.

Now, it is easy to say that this is just crazy, radicals, who were doing all this, but they have won, haven't they? I mean, how many people actually know that the domestic violence statistics are 50/50? How many know that domestic violence is most common in lesbian relationships? How many know that women are more likely to strike a man first than the other way around? And who is influencing the laws and the funding? How much funding do domestic violence shelters for women get? And how much for men's shelter? "What men's shelters?" I hear you ask. Exactly! How many laws have been passed to protect women from domestic violence? How many have been passed to protect men from domestic violence. How many government campaigns have we had that condemn male violence? How many have we had that condemn female violence? So radical feminists do their best to silence someone whose view was changed by what she observed in shelters she set up with the intention of helping women who she believed at the time were all helpless victims, and whose version of reality do we end up with in popular culture, law, media, and government?

[nothinghead]

You've made some good points, ballzac, but I felt the argument (which ended up just between us two) went on long enough, with neither really conceding much ground or convincing the other. I think if we kept going the argument would end up 20 pages long and end up in the Bitches, Gripes... thread, and because of the useful information in here I don't want that to happen. I'm not gonna keep replying in here, so we'll have to agree to disagree on this one.

[ballzac]

Fair enough. I don't think there's much risk of it ending up in bitches and gripes, but I get your point.

[SunChaser]

The same goes for the domestic violence statistics. I wouldn't go so far as to say there's a highly coordinated effort to suppress the facts, as they're easy to find for anyone who wants to look for them, but they're certainly being ignored by probably every feminist organisation out there, and there have been attempt to silence people by some radical feminist groups. Erin Pizzey is a good example. She started one of the first refuges for battered women, but contrary to her expectations, she found that the women were often as violent as the men they had left. She concluded that, on average, women are equally as violent as men (which is supported by domestic violence statistics) and that most violent relationships are reciprocal, in that both partners will be violent towards each other. After this, she and her family received death threats from radical feminists, and her dog was killed, eventually leading to her leaving the country in fear of her life.

Now, it is easy to say that this is just crazy, radicals, who were doing all this, but they have won, haven't they? I mean, how many people actually know that the domestic violence statistics are 50/50? How many know that domestic violence is most common in lesbian relationships? How many know that women are more likely to strike a man first than the other way around? And who is influencing the laws and the funding? How much funding do domestic violence shelters for women get? And how much for men's shelter? "What men's shelters?" I hear you ask. Exactly! How many laws have been passed to protect women from domestic violence? How many have been passed to protect men from domestic violence. How many government campaigns have we had that condemn male violence? How many have we had that condemn female violence? So radical feminists do their best to silence someone whose view was changed by what she observed in shelters she set up with the intention of helping women who she believed at the time were all helpless victims, and whose version of reality do we end up with in popular culture, law, media, and government?

 

Ballzac, I do agree with you to a degree, that men and women should be treated as equals in society, to a degree!

For example, I was watching the drum the other day and they were talking about how horrible it was, that women in the work place are far less likely to report sexual harassment, than in the past, due to repercussions and not being taken seriously.

This feminist was ranting on about how embarrassing and degrading it was for ‘women’ to be subjected to sexual harassment in the work place and how ‘women’ are not getting an appropriate amount of support from superiors when a complaint of sexual harassment is made, yet not once does she mention anything about sexual harassment towards men.

When in reality, although it may be a degrading experience when a female is sexually harassed in the work place and there may be a very serious issue with females not being taken seriously, or suffering from repercussions when a complaint is made, it can obviously be just as degrading for a man to be subjected to constant unwanted advancements or whatever and I guarantee it is far more likely that a bloke wouldn’t be taken seriously, if he made a complaint about being subjected to sexual harassment. In fact he’d just be completely laughed at. Yet not one mention was made about men enduring sexual harassment in the work place.

Basically, imo, from a feminist point of view, she shot herself in the foot and made women look inferior and helpless.

It should be noted though, this was referring to non physical forms of sexual harassment, like constant unwanted advancements, dirty text messages or just dirty jokes in general. imo, It’s obviously just as wrong for a male to be subjected to this form of behaviour and can be just as degrading & embarrassing.

Though, where I think your argument completely falls apart, is when it’s a male subjecting a female to any sort of unwanted ‘physical’ behaviour. Which is obviously way worse than a female subjecting a male to any unwanted physical abuse. Since men have evolved to be far stronger than women and in general, men are far more capable of protecting themselves from a violent act against females.

I mean come on, that just seems kind of obvious to me. A good example would be if some bloke decides to call his girl a stupid slut or something similar, for whatever reason, then just say he copes a right hook in the mouth. Well, I personally think he deserved it, I kind of also actually think its cool when a chick stands up for herself like that, lol.

But, if this situation is turned around and the same bloke has that same female all up in his face, screaming at the top of her lungs, calling him everything under the sun, then he gives her the same right hook, well, that’s just weak as piss and a complete dogs act, imo.

Anyway, that’s my take on it. To be honest I really can’t see how anyone could see it differently. Of course a man committing violence against a female is far worse than a female committing violence against man. Its just seems like common sense to me brother, imo.

Peace

[ballzac]

Though, where I think your argument completely falls apart, is when it’s a male subjecting a female to any sort of unwanted ‘physical’ behaviour. Which is obviously way worse than a female subjecting a male to any unwanted physical abuse. Since men have evolved to be far stronger than women and in general, men are far more capable of protecting themselves from a violent act against females.

 

"Obvious", not to me. Physical abuse is wrong, period. The gender of the abuser does not make it better or worse. I've already asked similar questions to others in this thread, but this argument about strength is non-sensical. Let's make this concrete. Give me a specific set of instruction that you would give to a man who is being physically attacked by a woman. Let's say she is pummeling him in the face with closed fists.

Does he:

A. start hitting her back until she is so injured or scared that she stops trying to attack him.

B. grab her wrists and tie her up so she is incapacitated and he has an opportunity to call the police or escape to a safe place, with the children if they have any.

C. he needs to take no action because his manly might is such that he is impervious to the feeble attacks of a female

The above may sound like ludicrous suggestions designed for the purpose of rhetoric, but I use those examples because I honestly can't see what you think a male victim is going to do with his (supposedly) superior strength that will protect him without sending him to prison. I say "supposedly" because strength among the genders are gaussian curves with different means for each gender, but they overlap considerably in the middle, and there is no way you can know which partner is stronger just because you know their genders. So please, seriously, even if you think I'm being trite, humour me by explaining exactly what the man should do in such a situation. This is also ignoring the fact that most abusive women use weapons. They throw plates at their partners and threaten them with knives, or hit them with frying pans, and there is nothing a man can do in the moment to protect himself that will not end up giving her the ammunition to paint him as the abuser. I think you underestimate the strength, as well as the brutality, that many women are capable of.

I mean come on, that just seems kind of obvious to me. A good example would be if some bloke decides to call his girl a stupid slut or something similar, for whatever reason, then just say he copes a right hook in the mouth. Well, I personally think he deserved it, I kind of also actually think its cool when a chick stands up for herself like that, lol.

But, if this situation is turned around and the same bloke has that same female all up in his face, screaming at the top of her lungs, calling him everything under the sun, then he gives her the same right hook, well, that’s just weak as piss and a complete dogs act, imo.

 

I am quite open to the idea that it's never okay to hit a person because of something they've said. I am also open to the idea that there are some things a person could say to you to intentionally inflame you that could be 'deserving' of physical violence. But to mix and match these positions depending on the gender of the two people is sexism, pure and simple.

Anyway, that’s my take on it. To be honest I really can’t see how anyone could see it differently. Of course a man committing violence against a female is far worse than a female committing violence against man. Its just seems like common sense to me brother, imo.

Peace

 

It's common sense to a lot of people that it's okay to enslave black people but not white people. It doesn't make it right. Your view is the prevailing view of our society, but it is precisely the normalcy of this position that gives violent women the license to do whatever they want to a man without being held accountable, and gives men no means of protecting themselves.

[SunChaser]

"Obvious", not to me. Physical abuse is wrong, period. The gender of the abuser does not make it better or worse. I've already asked similar questions to others in this thread, but this argument about strength is non-sensical. Let's make this concrete. Give me a specific set of instruction that you would give to a man who is being physically attacked by a woman. Let's say she is pummeling him in the face with closed fists.

Does he:

A. start hitting her back until she is so injured or scared that she stops trying to attack him.

B. grab her wrists and tie her up so she is incapacitated and he has an opportunity to call the police or escape to a safe place, with the children if they have any.

C. he needs to take no action because his manly might is such that he is impervious to the feeble attacks of a female

 

D. Walk away. Or if you are cornered, hold her down till she runs out of steam and then walk away. Then never go near the psycho bitch ever again. Problem solved!

More importantly though, just say it’s a female in the exact same position, does she even have the luxury of these multiple-choice questions? Or does she just have to take the violent act you described and hope it doesn’t last long and that she is still alive after?

It’s got nothing to do with sexism or slavery or whatever. Its basic physics.

[ballzac]

D. Walk away. Or if you are cornered, hold her down till she runs out of steam and then walk away. Then never go near the psycho bitch ever again. Problem solved!

 

It sounds pretty simple, but the chances of being able to restrain a violent and enraged person (male or female) without one of you being hurt is not great. And abusive people do not "run out of steam". They will tell you what you want to hear so that you let them go, and then they'll come back at you ten times harder. Assuming "walk away" is not possible (which would be equally possible for a female victim if the circumstances permitted) following the above advice will land you in jail or land her with sole custody of the children. She'll have scratches on her body from where you've tried to grab her and missed, she'll have bruises on her hands from where she's hit you, bruises on her legs from where she's kicked you, and bruises on her wrists from where you've held her down. If the police arrive and you're still holding her down, they will testify to it in court. Photos of her bruises will be shown, and she'll tell the court how she was afraid for her life.

Your undertanding of a situation like this is very comical, and suggests to me that you've probably never been in a situation where you have to protect yourself from abuse. It's not as simple as you think.

You're right that never going near the person again is the ideal thing to do. This is true for female victims too. But the reality is that both men and women have a lot of reasons that they stay with abusive partners, and while we can educate people about their roles as victims and what they can do to avoid the situation, it's very simplistic to say that the victim should just leave. Men have some unique reasons for staying, including the fact that if they have children, they are often very afraid of leaving the children alone with an abusive mother. Taking the children with them is usually seen as kidnapping by the law.

More importantly though, just say it’s a female in the exact same position, does she even have the luxury of these multiple-choice questions? Or does she just have to take the violent act you described and hope it doesn’t last long and that she is still alive after?

 

Women have these options more than men do. A and B (and D) will basically land a man in jail, or lose him custody of his kids, because society says that women are victims and men are perpetrators. Those same options are a lot easier for a woman, because if he is injured, it will be seen as self defense. You are also ignoring the fact that weapons can be involved. If a man is hitting his partner, even if she is too feeble to fight back, she can grab a knife and stab him, or hit him over the head with a blunt object, and it will most likely be seen as self-defense, particularly if there is a recorded history of abuse. A man in that situation does not have that option, because if he uses a weapon against her, it will be seen as abuse regardless of who was hitting first, and any record the police have will probably have labelled him as the abuser too.

But seriously, how weak do you think women are? I'm not a big guy, and if I was in a serious violent fight with my girlfriend, I couldn't confidently say that I would win. As I said, your view of violence by a woman is very comical. It's not a simple matter of delicately grabbing her dainty wrists and nonchalantly restraining her until she gives up. Violent people are violent. They are dangerous to be around. If a person wants to cause you physical harm, it's not a safe situation to be in, regardless of their gender.

It’s got nothing to do with sexism or slavery or whatever. Its basic physics.

 

Abuse has nothing to do with physics. It's all about psychology.

[ballzac]

The public perception that violence by women against men is okay is profoundly ingrained.

 

 

In your world, in this case, the man is largely at fault because in spite of being drugged and bound, he should have gently held her by the wrists until she ran out of steam. The picture you have in your head of violent women seems to me to be like a period drama, where the demure, petite, corseted woman slaps the philandering man across the cheek. We're talking about real life here.

The statistics are pretty clear. Fifty percent of intimate partner violence is perpetrated by women. If the man has all the control in such a situation, then you would expect 0% of these cases to end in the death of the man. Yet 40% of intimate partner homicides are perpetrated by women. It's possible that the strength difference does account for this being 40% and not 50%, but it's pretty clear that women can be extremely brutal, and the fact that this figure is 40% and not 0% shows beyond any doubt that, for whatever reason, men are not able to defend themselves against violent female partners much more than women are against male partners.

[whitewind]

D. Walk away. Or if you are cornered, hold her down till she runs out of steam and then walk away. Then never go near the psycho bitch ever again. Problem solved!

While she screams that you will never see the kids again? What sort of emotional violence is that, on top of physical? How is a man to oppose that without the help and support of the community / state which believes that he is the aggressor no matter what?

Stand alone, men. Be men, go it alone. If you lose, it's your fault. It's your fault anyway, you violent abuser.

This happened to a friend of mine, it's really not funny, and it scares the shit out of me. Guys can be jailed if they get too angry, and he had no choice when she invited her brothers around to sort shit out. Three against one, on the field and in court. Poor bastard didn't stand a chance.

He is still the abuser, she the victim. Bullshit, I call it.

[ballzac]

Australian Men's Shed Association

The modern Men’s Shed is an updated version of the shed in the backyard that has long been a part of Australian culture. Men’s Sheds are springing up all around Australia. If you looked inside one you might see a number of men restoring furniture, perhaps restoring bicycles for a local school, maybe making Mynah bird traps or fixing lawn mowers or making a kids cubby house for Camp Quality to raffle. You might also see a few young men working with the older men learning new skills and maybe also learning something about life from the men they work with. You will see tea-bags, coffee cups and a comfortable area where men can sit and talk. You will probably also see an area where men can learn to cook for themselves or they can learn how to contact their families by computer.

http://www.mensshed.org/what-is-a-men's-shed/.aspx

From what I gather, these are groups for mostly older gentlemen, most probably retired and divorced or widowed. It gives them some human interaction that they might otherwise not have access to, and I think a big part of what they are for is to combat the high incidence of depression and suicide in men. In addition to this, the majority of stuff they work on is for charity, and the organisation is not for profit.

Or, if you don't like that perspective, you can look at it from the feminist angle (it starts to get really eye-opening at about post 7):

[Psylo]

I was not going to buy into this thread because me being a cheeky smartass would only offend. But that thread about the Men's Shed is absolutely deplorable, and the toxic opinions of the contributors makes me sick (Ooooohhh, its because I'm a mysoginist that I say this!). From what I understand of the Men's Shed, it is a valuable networking concept for older men, widowed etc to maintain a line of communication with other people. Exactly as Ballzac says.

I can't read the whole thread now (the screenshot thread), it's pissing me off. But a flaw in the OP's sense of entitlement is that she fails to observe that her local community now has a Women's Refuge AND a Men's Refuge.

[ballzac]

That's nothing psylo. Check this one out:

I wonder where the poor kid heard the word "rape" I'm sure it wasn't from the crazy feminist who is supposedly responsible for his wellbeing. Cos, you know, feminists never talk about rape, rape culture, rape enabling, rape, rape, rape, rape, patriarchy, rape, privilege, rape, rape, rape...

The group who runs the website (it is private, hence why screenshots gathered from an MRA 'agent') had one of their events cancelled by the owners of the venue after these screenshots were sent to them. Their headline speaker was going to be Sheila Jeffreys, a professor of political science at the university of Melbourne. So when people compare criticising feminism to criticising Islam based on the extreme examples, I'll go out on a limb and say that until we have al Qaeda members being given high profile positions at government institutions in our society, and when we start getting our political propaganda, our teachings in ethics, etc. from fundamentalism muslims, or people closely inspired by their teachings, there is a big difference. People are so willing to believe the stuff that has been spread about gender, without checking the facts, and being unaware of the motivations behind a lot of the manufactured statistics, because...well...it's all about equality.

Along with the screenshot's, the profiles of most of the members were linked back to their facebook accounts. All of this information was made public. I'm not sure how I feel about these sort of tactics, but it's quite interesting nonetheless. Many of these women, as the ones above, are in a position of responsibility for the welfare of children, and it's terrifying. And to think, the parents are probably afraid to leave their kids alone with the male staff member for fear that he might be a paedophile, but they'd never guess that the woman they leave their little boy with wants to cut off his penis or throw him through a pane of glass.

[whitewind]

We seriously need more males in childcare. There is some evidence to suggest that boys are doing worse than ever at school, and it may well be that extremist views like this are having an impact on the psyche of young boys, I am not sure how psychological abuse will lead to less rape, my understanding is that happy people won't hurt each other. One of those women (the OP) was based in the Blue Mountains, where I was living for a while. WTF?

[ballzac]

it may well be that extremist views like this are having an impact on the psyche of young boys

 

I think it's unlikely. Views like this really are not the majority view. My issue with it is more that when these women become gender studies lecturers and domestic violence 'researchers', it is their lies and inflated statistics that become the accepted 'reality'. Gail Dines is another example of someone in a similar academic position who spreads falsehoods and her own anecdotes that seem to be in stark contrast with evidence and the reported experiences of sex workers. Her views may not be quite as misandric as some of those expressed in the screenshots above, but she has said some 'wonderful' things, like that the Duke Lacrosse players who were falsely accused of rape should take some of the blame. She calls all sex work "sex trafficking", and when people like her spread figures about how many "sex slaves" there are in western countries, those statements get repeated without anyone questioning whether she's talking about people who are forced into sex work, or people who have freely chosen it.

As I've stated before, there are many who call themselves feminists who are strongly opposed to such a black and white understanding of these issues, but these tend not to be the feminists who become lecturers in gender studies or other positions of authority. So I am not complaining about those people, and if they had a significant influence on public perception and policy, I would not have a problem with that either. I have a problem with the way these radical nutjobs are respected and their crap is believed so readily, and their manufactured statistics are reprinted in the media without question.

I don't really know if boys are doing worse at school than they used to, but girls are doing better than boys, and they are still getting more in the way of scholarships and assistance in most western countries, and this is because they are seen as an oppressed minority. In other words, if there aren't enough girls in high paying jobs for the liking of feminists, they assume that they are being discriminated against at every turn. The actual figures of how many girls are finishing high school with very high marks, but then choosing work that is easier and/or more fulfilling than finance or mining, are ignored, and then affirmative action is applied to improve the education of the girls, even though they're already doing better than the boys.

EDIT: I meant I think it's unlikely that they are having an widespread impact on the psyche of young boys. These individuals are almost definitely having a direct impact on the children in their 'care'.

Edited November 9, 2012 by ballzac

[ballzac]

It's interesting what you get when you google some of the names:

...the (Feminism in London) conference certainly blew wide-open the myth that all feminists ‘hate men’.

Indeed, as yesterday proved, many feminists ARE men.

But enough about my experience of the day. We are, after all, women’s views on news, so we asked the women delegates present what they thought…

“Feminism is commitment and it can be very disheartening. Events like today renew your energy in a difficult fight. I feel inspired. We need to keep up the fight together.” Alice Eden

“The main hall speakers were inspiring, interesting and very good at multi-tasking! Enjoyed the discussion on women’s place within public space and breaking down the barriers.” Gemma Price

“Great to meet others and exchange ideas on how to be a feminist worker, parent, partner, voter and activist in the modern world.” Michaela Hendriks

“How wonderful to be in a room of 1000 women who will admit to being feminists! So few of the people I meet are – or say they dislike the word” Christine

“The Director of Southall Black Sisters in my new hero! Also great to see the linking up of issues worldwide – like anti-militarism or anti-corporatism. This is so important.” Anna

“I am overwhelmed and emotional!” Lizzy Hyatt

“Always a day that reminds me I am one of many. I don’t have to stand alone.” Karol

“I mainly visited the informative and friendly stalls. I look forward to making new friends and forming new networks after today.” Dlivia

“Love it! This was badly needed, especially after the budget cuts. Let’s have a longer one next year. So much to hear and so little time.” Michelle

“A life-changing, consciousness-raising event empowering women everywhere.” Ashley Dodsworth

“Amazing, inspiring speakers. We need MORE WOMEN. MORE MORE MORE!” Het

“Was great hearing about women’s news from all over the world.” Holly

“My hope is that all the women here will be inspired to ACTION rather than just talking.” Laila Namdarkhan

 

http://www.womensviewsonnews.org/2010/10/wvon-meets-feminism-in-london/

So, what sort of action is this last person talking about? Well, let's see:

I'm not implying that all people who describe themselves as feminists hate men, nor that all the people at these mainstream feminist events hold these same views, but it's pretty clear that there are people who are at least fairly well well known as activists in the feminist community that are either accepted in spite of these views, or claim to be interested in equality while having a hidden agenda. I find it hard to believe that someone with these extreme views would be able to keep quiet when among other feminists, so I'm betting on the former. How many of these other women hold these views but happen not to participate in online discussion, or do so on a private forum that hasn't been exposed?

Many high profile feminists have contributed to the blog on the site that the private forum is run by, and I don't think it would be credible to think that they are ignorant of the beliefs held by the majority of their readers and the members of the site who post on the private forum. I'm sure when they get together at conferences or other meetings, there would be a lot of discussion of gendercide and the like, but I think the a lot of the high profile people probably know they have too much to lose if they post on the private forum and it is exposed as it was. And, considering the level of male-bashing allowed, I think it's fair to say that the majority of these views are endorsed by the owner of the site.

[ballzac]

A feminist group protesting and blocking the entrance to a talk given by Warren Farrell entitled "Boys to Men: Beyond the Boys' Crisis" on Friday. In the video, you can hear the protesters chanting "no hate speech on campus".

 

Now, I'm fairly familiar with Warren Farrell. I've watched a few of his talks on youtube, and read one of his books, and browsed through others. I'm not a huge fan of his writing style, because he writes in a very new-agey, self-help way, the sort of thing that is perfect for the Oprah show, where he appeared many years ago and was well received by her mainly female audience.

Anyone who is familiar with Farrell knows that his talks are not hate speech, and characterising them as such makes light of the real hate speech coming from groups like the KKK, and yes, the women from radfemhub in the screenshots I posted above. Farrell is one of the most gentle, considerate, and reserved public speakers I've ever heard, but he is providing a counter-story to the accepted one of "patriarchy" espoused by feminists. In fact, I don't know if it's still the case, but Farrell described/describes himself as a feminist. If you read "Why Men Earn More", it is written almost as a self help book to women to explain what men do that causes them to earn more, and how they (women) can modify their behaviour, at a personal cost, if they want to earn more too.

This is not the best example of him speaking, as it's only a snapshot of a talk, but it was the most relevant example to the topic he was speaking about at Toronto, so I thought it might give an idea of roughly what the protesters consider hate speech.

 

It's possible that groups like these are made up entirely of people, including men, who actually believe this is hate speech. But I think it's more likely that feminism is given the benefit of the doubt to such an extent that none of these people are even willing to check the facts when someone tells them this man promotes hate speech. All it takes is a couple of radicals who want to see anyone talking about men's rights silenced, and it will spread throughout an entire feminist group without ever being questioned. And that is, again, why I have said over and over again here that it is the way society accepts 'facts' that are made up by feminists without even challenging them. I mean, who wouldn't be against misogyny and hate speech? So if you hear that a man is promoting these things, why check if it's actually true or not?

[ballzac]

I know people showed a lot of respect for Stossel when he did his piece on drug prohibition, maybe his piece on Farrel's book will help

 

[ballzac]

I'm not sure if anyone's still paying attention to this thread... It seems to have become a bit of a monologue

But considering I posted the video of the protest above, I thought it was worth providing an update, as the talk given by Dr Farrell that was protested has been posted. He talks about his thoughts on the reasons for the protesting at the beginning. I haven't finished watching it, but so far it's well worth it, and makes it seem even more insane that people were protesting the event. He's probably the most kind to feminists out of all the people I've heard talk about men's issues (he's been accused in the past of being a feminist apologist). But because he does talk about men's issues, his talks are somehow labelled as hate speech. I can't think of anything more indicative of a weak position than the attempt to silence dissenting views rather than engage in a dialogue.

 

[Seldom]

heheheh. guys talking about feminism.

[Buttsack]

It's all about power. Men are in power in almost every aspect of society and they don't want it to change. I think the reason why men are kept in power and given the most money is because they are easily manipulated and respond easily to things that boost their ego. Women on the other hand have more empathy and care a lot more for children by their very nature.

I think women stay normal because they have a reset once a month when they go through there menstrual cycle. Men need drugs to help them reset their ego to get back to their natural and emotional side.

A lot of the women spokespeople they put on commercial TV makes women look stupid and irrational. They do this on purpose so men won't take any notice of it. I see this all the time and hear it from people who watch TV out loud. It's funny when they put women on TV to talk about childrens welfare that look like they have never had kids. The only feminists I see on commercial TV look like they are stuck up and haven't had a root for a few years.

Both sides have their extremes but don't believe everything you see on TV. Most men and women don't know how to communicate properly so problems are never solved and it's always the other sides fault. I do think that men are worse at communicating than women. It's mostly the mans attitude towards women and the fact they have to be MANLY that is the problem. I see this first hand in the construction industry. For the men who are nice to women they are mostly just compliant and their gf wears the pants.

The best way I've found to deal with men or women is to not expect anything and never blame someone else for the way you feel. Learn to look after yourself so you don't have to rely on anyone and you won't have to owe your wife or GF anything. Everyone is equal so both men and women need to learn how to cook, change car tires, handyman work around the house and heaps of other stuff. Too often men and women keep information from each other or play dumb to make the other person feel in power. If your GF doesn't know how to change a tire or you BF doesn't know how to cook then teach them. At the end of the day every relationship problem comes down to lack of communication and understanding.

This is a good doco

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gkIiV6konY

Edited November 22, 2012 by Buttsack

[ballzac]

Men are in power in almost every aspect of society and they don't want it to change.

 

It depends on how you define power.

I would definitely recommend considering Warren Farrell's position on this before you assert one way or the other. His premise is to redefine power as "control over one's own life". When you define power like this, rather than as "most money earned", or "highest position in the workplace", or some such, you get a very different perspective.

To give one example, the simplistic view would be to say that if men are more often principles and women are more often teachers, men have more power because they are in more positions of power and earn more money. Here is Dr. Farrell's take:

What I'm trying to do is redefine what we mean by 'power'. I'm saying power is the ability to control our own life. If we have the ability to control our own life, we have power. If we don't, if we're working for somebody else, if we feel obligated to take a job that we don't like in a coal mine, or to become a principal, rather than a teacher, and we love teaching, and then we earn more money and like it less, and then we die sooner as a result of stress, and someone else is spending our money while we're dead, I don't call that power.

From this discussion about his book "The Myth of Male Power":

 

If you look at what fraction of CEOs and politicians are men, it definitely appears that men have more power. But this is a tiny fraction of the population. I, as an individual, do not have power by proxy simply because there are more male CEOs than female. I've already mentioned this before, but I think it's worth reiterating. If, instead of looking at which gender holds most positions of power, you look at which gender holds the least powerful positions in society, you get a very different perspective. The majority of homeless people are men. This does not seem like a position of power to me, and constitutes a much greater percentage of the population than do CEOs and politicians.

Women also have more power provided by the legal system. Reproductive rights is the most obvious example. In most western countries, women have multiple options if they are pregnant and do not want the financial responsibility of having a child. Men have none. Women can, in most places, have an abortion. They can give the baby up for adoption. In many places they can legally abandon their baby at a hospital. The man has two options: pay, or go to jail. This is relevant to everyone, and I think things like this are a better measure of power than the numbers of each gender in parliament. This is a huge difference in the amount of power over their own future that all men and women have respectively.

I think the primary fallacy that drives the notion that men have more power is the assumption the all men benefit from the power of the most powerful men. That men in positions of power are acting in ways that benefit men, in general, at the expense of women.

You're right that men are in power if we define power as "most money earned", but I don't think it's just men that want to be in power, it's also women that want men in power. Consider how many women would be proud to introduce, to their friends and family, an attractive and kind guy who is a secretary on $40k, versus an attractive and kind guy who is a manager on $200k. In many cases, men feel immasculated by their wife or girlfriend earning more, while many women consider men who earn less than them to be 'losers'. So I think it is only fair to look at both sides of the equation, which I think you were hinting at in your post. These are generalisations, but are common attitudes, and it is these that push each gender to follow certain paths in life on average.

[Roopey]

This thread is great, I really enjoyed reading it. I definitely feel that men have been getting the raw end of the deal when it comes to the way society views them now. If you are a man you are automatically suspect of crude and violent behavior until you have proven otherwise.

The real issue is the unbalanced nature of it. Why are we not suspecting that women are going to be conniving and manipulative and that they should have to first prove that they are not.

Seriously though, I do find it interesting how the church hasn't really been brought into the discussion as it is the main influence for the patriarchal system in the first place. Between the obvious male-centered dogma and male-centered clergy it is no wonder that the society that is run by the Church is run by men.

I'm not sure if this is true of all feminist, but I bet you can count on one hand how many of them are still in the church. Most have obviously left the church and are still living in a church dominated world. The problem is that they are tackling the problem in a way that is not at all focused on what the real issue is: patriarchal fear-based organized religion. You see how it makes no sense to fight this issue with more fear rhetoric and more condemnation. Their obvious intent is to reverse the hierarchy rather than balance it out, despite their words otherwise.

The answer is of course to rid ourselves of this dualistic way of thinking and to start seeing ourselves and the planet as one. I recommend a high dose of mushies to anyone who wants to do further research into this.

[Psylo]

Everyone is equal so both men and women need to learn how to cook, change car tires, handyman work around the house and heaps of other stuff. Too often men and women keep information from each other or play dumb to make the other person feel in power. If your GF doesn't know how to change a tire or you BF doesn't know how to cook then teach them.

 

You are attempting to tout equality by promoting tired old stereotypes. It's this sort of mindset (men can't cook, women can't do handywork) that keeps expected gender roles in the dark ages. It hardly validates whatever point youre trying to make.

Edited November 23, 2012 by Psylo

[ballzac]

I'm not sure if this is true of all feminist, but I bet you can count on one hand how many of them are still in the church.

 

Of course. Most people only subscribe to one religion at a time